Libya/European Council
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has rightly been commended for the way he has averted a humanitarian catastrophe, but will he say a little more about what will mark the end of this conflict? Ideally we would like to see Gaddafi step down, but is it possible that he could comply with the terms of the no-fly zone and the UN Security Council resolution while remaining in office and keeping the country divided, rather like a new Cyprus?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend asks the extremely difficult and very good question, because it is unclear what will happen next. People did not predict the rush to Benghazi, and nor did they predict the rush back from Benghazi. They did not predict that the rebels would be so effective at knocking the Gaddafi regime out of all those coastal towns, including the key oil installations, so it is difficult to have an absolutely clear picture of what will happen next. I think that what we should hold true to is the very strong UN Security Council resolution that is about a no-fly zone, about protecting civilians and about getting humanitarian aid in. To comply with that, Gaddafi must comply with all the things in the resolution and with what the President of the United States set out in his statement. I see no sign of that happening and, as that is not happening, we are right to go on enforcing the resolution.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Brevity demands bluntness, for which I hope the Government will forgive me. I support the motion, but I think that we need to be honest about the consequences of what we are taking on. First, we have crossed a threshold, and by approving this motion, the House is crossing it with our political leaders. Hon. Members should have no illusions: there is no such thing as limited war, in all its bloody terror and dirt. Secondly, I remind the House that
“no one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.”
So wrote Karl von Clausewitz.
The Government must admit that on that there is some doubt and the potential for confusion and indecision. The Prime Minister set that out again today when he outlined the limited aims of the UN Security Council resolution alongside our aspiration to remove Gaddafi. The former Chief of the General Staff, General Lord Dannatt, wrote at the weekend:
“Unless the military planners are crystal clear about the strategic objective to be achieved then the focusing of effort is going to be misaligned from the outset.”
That is a danger we face today. He talked of how military planners are
“trained to work out the implied tasks as well, to ensure that the campaign plan fulfils entirely what the higher authority's intentions are. In this case, the specified task is the protection of civilians, but the implied task—and the end-state to be achieved—must be the removal of Colonel Gaddafi and his regime”.
At times, the Prime Minister seemed to be talking as though we could just implement a no-fly zone and go home. Of course, we will have to maintain a no-fly zone until the political situation is resolved. How else is the stalemate to be resolved?
We have a duty to be clear. Either the removal of Gaddafi is the legitimate military aim, or I put it to the Foreign Secretary that we must drop it from our public statements and focus our words on the more limited task we are setting our military. We cannot do both. Clausewitz again:
“The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.”
The UK has to balance the will to obtain a preferred outcome—Gaddafi’s removal—with the wider issue of security and stability.
This action derives its political credibility because of support from Libya’s fellow Arab nations. Can we afford to risk losing their support or that of the United States, which acts as underwriter for the military effort? I submit not. We can succeed in preventing the atrocity in Benghazi, but should the Arab League walk away from the confrontation with Gaddafi, why should it be our fight? We had better fix our goal and military strategy accordingly rather than invite mission creep by over-extending that rhetoric.
In the meantime we must settle the other vital questions that the Prime Minister started to address. Who is in command of this operation? I would like NATO to be in charge. Who is in command of the communications strategy? Where is the Jamie Shea—he was so effective in the Balkans—of this operation? Finally, how are these matters being considered by the Government? The Public Administration Committee, which I chair, conducted an inquiry into how Government strategy is decided. Strategy is not about setting certain policies in stone; it is about the ability to adapt plans to changing circumstances. To that extent, it is not about whether we reopen the strategic defence and security review; it is about how the SDSR should be adapted to changing circumstances. We have already had six strategic shocks since the SDSR.
United Kingdom Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I put in a bid for our hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) as well?
Mr Cash
It would be highly desirable. This Bill would in fact succeed the European Union Bill in order. We know that any Act of Parliament that is subsequent to a previous Act and is inconsistent with it, particularly in the context of sovereignty issues, overrides the previous Act. Therefore, if this Bill were enacted—if it followed the European Union Bill—it would supersede it. It would thereby also have the great advantage of overriding the manifestly absurd and, I believe, completely unlawful motion—unlawful in constitutional terms—that was passed, which said that this House did not reaffirm the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament. When I use the word “unlawful” in this context, I simply mean that the European Union Bill is still under consideration by both Houses. I am using that expression with regard to the constitutionality of the matter, but it is a very important question and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised that point, because it is important that we get it straightened out.
I come back to the explanatory notes. The report that the European Scrutiny Committee produced, which was unanimous, particularly on clause 18, was based on evidence from pretty well all the pre-eminent constitutional experts on what sovereignty meant in the context of the European Union Bill and in general. There was complete unanimity that the Bill did not contain what was on the tin, that it did not confer sovereignty and that the provision was not needed. However, read in the context of the explanatory notes, the invocation of the common law principle, which is a very profound question that has been raging in academic circles and the establishment for a long time, has the effect of reinforcing the view expressed in certain quarters, particularly in certain parts of the Supreme Court, that the sovereignty of Parliament is qualified by the ultimate authority of the courts, which is not something that the public at large would agree with, to say the least, or, for that matter, that they even knew was happening. The expression “common-law principle” has now been taken out of the explanatory notes, which is a great victory for the European Scrutiny Committee and will help substantially to alter the position in the right direction.
I am not convinced that the argument has been completely resolved, but the discussions of the kind that we are having today are helpful in further removing any doubt about the question of the sovereignty of Parliament. That is because the sovereignty of Parliament is not a purely theoretical abstraction; it is to do with the practical application of law passed in this House and in the other place for the purpose of implementing legislative proposals emanating from the Government or other sources to reflect the views of the electorate. In other words, this is essentially a democratic question.
In cases in which European Union law, European Court of Human Rights law and European convention law contradict the wishes of the electorate, it must be made clear that the sovereignty of Parliament will override such provisions in a way that ensures that the wishes of the electorate are complied with, consistently with general election and manifesto pledges, irrespective of coalition agreements, and in a manner that guarantees that the electorate’s views are not only understood but put into effect.
Mr Jenkin
I took part in the debates on the European Union Bill, and the European Scrutiny Committee is to be commended for what it achieved in setting the record straight that sovereignty was not a common law principle but a fact of history. However, what we proposed in that Bill, and what is being proposed here, is to put the word “sovereignty” into statute. My hon. Friend’s Committee never took advice on that question, but we rather assumed that this would be a good thing to do. What does he say to those who are concerned that it would actually make the concept of sovereignty justiciable if we placed it in statute, and that we are in danger of drawing the courts into a dispute with Parliament about what sovereignty is?
Mr Cash
I accept that that is an important point, but we have been put in this position, historically and legally, by the manner in which the European Communities Act 1972 has increasingly been eating away at the way in we legislate in this House.
This is a difficult question, and I do not want to get too historical about it, but similar considerations arose at the time of the passing of the Bill of Rights, and also in the proposed constitutional settlement around 1648. At that time, the sovereignty of the monarch was regarded by the Crown as absolute, and there was a question of how to deal with that. Unfortunately, it was dealt with, in the words of Oliver Cromwell, as a matter of “cruel necessity”. Despite the fact that many people did not want it to happen, he took off the King’s head as a symbolic demonstration that the King was no longer sovereign.
Mr Jenkin
One of the most important points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) was that there is no substitute for Parliament exercising its sovereignty. In that respect, our amendment to the European Union Bill and the Bill before us are a cry of despair. They are not a substitute for Parliament exercising its sovereignty. No amount of legislating for parliamentary sovereignty will match the exercise of our sovereignty. As one of my hon. Friends said to me this morning, it is a bit like the parish council beating the bounds of the parish. It is a long time since we exercised our sovereignty in that way here, but sooner or later we are going to have to do so, to prove that we still have it.
Mr Cash
The question also arises in the context of assertions by the courts. It is important that we respect the independence of the judiciary, but the judiciary in turn must respect the rights and privileges of the elected House of Commons and, indeed, Parliament as a whole. The claims that have been made, which are set out in the European Scrutiny Committee report, clearly demonstrate that moves are not only afoot but under way to qualify the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament and Acts of Parliament. Such moves fall back on an assertion that they are relying on the rule of law. I have asked questions about this repeatedly, not least in a debate in Westminster Hall yesterday on the Bill of Rights, and suggested that we ask these questions: whose law, which law, and how has it arisen?
UN Security Council Resolution (Libya)
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady makes an extremely good point and is absolutely right. I had a very good conversation with President Obama last night, and I think he has shown great leadership on the UN and what is proposed in the new resolution, and on being able to bring together its various elements. The right hon. Lady is right that allowing the Arab League the space and time to come forward and make its own views clear has helped to create a sense of consensus at the UN, where we have the ability to act. But the clock is now ticking, and we now need a sense of urgency, because we do not want to see a bloodbath in Benghazi, and further repression and taking of innocent civilian life in Libya.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I join my right hon. and hon. Friends in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on his brilliant success at the United Nations, which is a vindication of the credibility of British foreign policy. Can he say more about the strategic objective, which, as Lord Dannatt and others have clearly stated, must be extremely clear? My right hon. Friend is committed to regime change, but are our allies, and in particular President Obama, committed to regime change?
The Prime Minister
The answer I give my hon. Friend is that almost every leader in the free world has said Gaddafi needs to go—that his regime is illegitimate and there is no future for Libya with him in charge—but we must be clear about the aim of what we are now involved in. The aim is to put in place the UN Security Council resolution, which is about protecting people’s lives and about the steps we are prepared to take to isolate the regime and give that country the chance of a better future. We must restrict ourselves to that aim in meeting this UN Security Council resolution. Obviously, we have a desire, which I and others have expressed, that Gaddafi has no future, but our aim here must be clear, and that is how we must drive this alliance forward.
Japan and the Middle East
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman is extremely consistent in his line of questioning about this issue, and he is right to raise these questions. I think that all Governments and all countries are going to have to ask themselves some quite searching questions about things that were sold and training that was given, and all the rest of it, and I will make sure that those questions are asked and answered here. But to be fair to the last Government, I can understand absolutely why relations were formed with Gaddafi after he gave up the weapons of mass destruction, although tragically not all of them have been destroyed or disposed of. The question is whether we then went into a relationship that was too blind and unthinking, and there are some serious questions to ask about that.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I really think that my right hon. Friend deserves congratulations on the fact that a fortnight ago he was virtually a lone voice in floating the idea of a no-fly zone, and now he has the support of the Arab League and France. What exactly went on at the European Council? Whom was Baroness Ashton speaking for? What mandate does she have to give her opinions? Should she not serve the member states of the European Union rather than pretending to lead them?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks, and the temptation to be pulled down a particular path about Baroness Ashton, who I think does a good job. The point that I would make is this: what happened on Friday, I think, is that there was a rogue briefing by one of her spokespeople that she was extremely embarrassed about and, to be fair to her, did everything she possibly could to try to put right. But as the old saying goes, a lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Harper
I am not going to give way.
The key arguments against the threshold remain as compelling as ever. I have addressed some of the points made by their lordships during their debate today. Although they are entitled to ask us to consider the matter again, I do not believe that the points they raised change the balance of argument.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend not recognise that there is a difference between an ordinary election and constitutional change? A common feature of many constitutions is having thresholds for constitutional change. Just because we have an unwritten constitution, that does not mean that we are absolved of any responsibility to show that there is a reasonable threshold for constitutional change. If there were only a 10% turnout in London, where there are no forthcoming local elections, would that really constitute a valid result?
Mr Harper
I have two points to make. First, on my hon. Friend’s last point, we are talking about a national referendum and the important thing is to get people to vote across the whole of the United Kingdom. Secondly, we do not have a tradition in this country of thresholds for referendums either. Ten referendums have been held and only in the devolution referendum in the 1970s was a threshold inserted—the rest of the referendums had no such provision. He is being too pessimistic, because people will engage with this question. However, it would be wrong to thwart a clear decision—a yes vote—on the basis of the sort of mathematical formula that I have just set out. It could have quite perverse results and give an incentive for people to stay at home.
Mr Cash
I entirely endorse the final remarks of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—the Government amendment in lieu is a load of rubbish.
It is important to get across what is really going on here. In the context of the referendum, the Conservative party is being led like a lamb to the slaughter. The reality is that the referendum is entirely to do with Liberal party aspirations as expressed in the coalition agreement. I have here an extract from the right hon. Member for Deauville—[Laughter.] I meant the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), who might as well have come from Deauville. He quotes the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne), as saying:
“Our historic mission is to create a British Liberal party whose influence will be embedded in our politics through a reformed voting system – a Liberal party capable of dealing with both other parties.”
The reality, therefore, is that what lies at the heart of this debate is not the rubbish that we have heard from the Minister on the Electoral Commission, but the glue that holds the coalition together.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord Rooker and the other Lords and Ladies who made such magnificent speeches this morning, which I had the privilege to witness. They are right that the Bill provides for a binding referendum, and that the essence of the argument is that the Bill is a constitutional issue, because it proposes to change our constitution in a fundamental way for the first time.
I believe that 40% is a reasonable test. It is accepted by all the constitutional authorities—including, ironically, Vernon Bogdanor, who was the Prime Minister’s own tutor. This threshold of 40%, which has come down to us in an amendment from the House of Lords, is reasonable and fair with respect to the electorate as a whole. We are being asked to reject that provision. I am no longer going down the route of my original proposal, which one of their Lordships referred to as “the fatal amendment”. I propose, for all the reasons that have been so ably put forward this evening, to follow what the House of Lords said.
There is no reference to thresholds in this coalition agreement—none whatever. None of the political parties expressed any genuine manifesto commitment to the alternative vote and no commitment whatever to the threshold. Given that the Bill purports to provide for a fair electoral system with preference votes, one would have thought that its proponents would at least have the decency and common sense to give the electorate a fair deal—[Interruption.] Yes, and the courage, as one of my hon. Friends says. I thought that the Liberal Democrats believed in fairness and constitutional propriety, but I was mightily mistaken.
Mr Jenkin
Can we dispense with this argument that any kind of threshold somehow provides an incentive for the no campaign to campaign for people to stay at home? The truth is that this is simply a test of whether there are enough people motivated in favour of change to justify it. If enough people are not prepared to vote for change, why should it take place? That seems to me to provide the reason why a threshold should exist for every referendum. Incidentally, when the Conservatives were in opposition, we voted for a threshold in every referendum.
Mr Cash
I agree with my hon. Friend and point out that no European country other than France does not have a threshold. Over the generations, we in this House have always regarded constitutional matters as of such fundamental importance as to require a free vote and to rule out the sort of programming and guillotining that we are seeing here. Yesterday, I had a mere two minutes in which to express the arguments on my amendment.
I heartily dislike this Bill and I believe that its effect will be exceedingly damaging to the Conservative party and exceedingly damaging to our national interest. I strongly urge my hon. Friends to vote for the threshold arrangements proposed by the noble Lords. I believe that doing so would be in the interests of the Conservative party, its individual members and its councillors who are soon coming up for local elections, as well as in the national interest of the electorate as a whole.
Other Members wish to speak, so I shall bring my remarks immediately to an end. The Government should be careful about what they wish for because it might come true.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Chris Bryant
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. In addition, there are some specific concerns. For example, it is possible that, as a result of the boundary changes, we would end up with no single constituency in Wales with a Welsh-speaking majority. That is not of particular concern to my constituents in the Rhondda, but it is of concern to the British Parliament that that voice could be lost.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
One of the reasons for my losing faith in the old system of public inquiries is that, for all the arguments that the Conservative party presented for a fairer distribution of constituencies, we finished up with a manifestly unfair distribution. We need a speedier system, which can use fresher and more up-to-date data to deliver a fairer distribution of constituencies. That should happen.
Chris Bryant
It might be that the Conservative party lost because it did not advance good arguments, which goes back to my earlier point.
Ian Lucas
Absolutely; my hon. Friend makes a powerful point about Northern Ireland, and I can speak for my constituency in Wales. The Bill will have profound implications for communities across the United Kingdom. In due course, the Boundary Commission will reveal the proposals and people will see what they are. Only at that stage will people will realise the true horror of the Government’s proposals. They represent the antithesis of any form of localism, and they will take away responsibility from local communities.
The dripping sanctimony that we used to hear from Liberal Democrats and Conservatives about localism is in marked contrast to their appalling unreadiness to listen to any arguments about the Bill. They should be deeply ashamed of this legislation. All legislation should be made for the long term, and should carry as much cross-party consensus as possible. Members who support the Bill will have to explain to their constituents why they will no longer have the right to make oral representations on any proposed changes to their local constituency. Those Members will rue the day that they voted for this legislation.
Mr Jenkin
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) that this whole matter is being rushed. If there is one thing that should not be rushed, it is the prospect of constitutional change. The pressure of time on our proceedings on the Bill arises solely from the Government’s desire to achieve the date of 5 May for the referendum. That date is cemented into the bit of the coalition agreement that was not published, and it exists purely for political purposes. This is a purely political device, perhaps to try to get a yes vote, or to try to boost the Liberal Democrat turnout at the local elections being held on the same day. Let me be absolutely blunt: there will be barely 11 weeks between the Bill receiving Royal Assent and the referendum, even though the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 stipulates that there should be a period of six months in which to prepare for a referendum.
This referendum is being indecently rushed. Unfortunately, Lords amendment 2, which proposes that the date should be changed, does not do the trick. It does not require the date to be changed. I do not know whether the Government intend to accept that amendment, but it would have no practical effect. The House of Lords has made clear its discomfort with the fact that the referendum was to be held on the same date as the local elections and the Assembly elections. I will not detain the House on that Lords amendment if there is no Division, but I wish to draw attention to the fact that this is a shoddy way to conduct a referendum. It is unconstitutional, it is political—deeply political—and it is not an objective way to address this issue. It will undermine the value of any referendum result, and I shall certainly support a later Lords amendment to address the problem.
Mr Harper
Let me make a little more progress. I am conscious that other Members want to contribute and I have been generous in giving way.
As drafted, the Bill that left this House offered simplicity and, above all, certainty—the certainty that every vote would count and not be distorted by an artificial barrier. When people go to the polls on 5 May, we should listen to what they have to say, whatever their view. As well as the issues of principle that I have outlined, there are also some technical and practical deficiencies. Before I go on to them, I will take an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin).
Mr Jenkin
I echo the point made by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) that the amendment only requires the House of Commons to think about a poor turnout and how to respond to the result under such circumstances rather than automatically triggering a small yes vote with a low turnout and a new voting system. Does the Minister not recognise the irony of his position? Here we are looking at a referendum that might introduce a new voting system under which a Member elected to this House will be required to get 50% of the votes cast, yet we cannot even put in a threshold to require a 40% turnout to give credibility to the result of a referendum. What serious constitution around the world does not have some form of threshold and why should we not introduce one in this case?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Let me be quite honest: a number of Members are still seeking to catch my eye, so we need shorter interventions.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg
I think that I am defending just as much the interests of the socialists of Great Grimsby and other places, because it is not in the interest of the voters of Great Grimsby to have Governments who come in and play fast and loose with the constitution; that is a really bad idea. The hon. Gentleman has been a most distinguished advocate of less European intrusion in our affairs. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] As is obvious, he has the respect of the whole House for that, but Governments have been able to play fast and loose with our constitution in a European context because there has been no check from the upper House, and because anything, ultimately, can be jammed through under the Parliament Act 1911.
With this Bill, I want to begin to say—I have proposed the same change to the European Union Bill before the House—that such important constitutional changes need much deeper and broader support than that of some, to use the late Sir Robin Day’s term, “here today, gone tomorrow” politicians. We need constitutional change that is in the historic continuum of our great nation.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
It seems to me that my hon. Friend is very ably saying that the Government cannot have it both ways. Either they believe in a Fixed-term Parliaments Bill that requires future Governments to fix their parliamentary terms, and should therefore accept the new clause and remove the room for manoeuvre, or this is just a Bill of political convenience, they do not want fixed-term Parliaments and intend to retain the flexibility.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am enormously grateful to my hon. Friend for putting pithily in one intervention what it has taken me, I fear, 20 minutes to say. He is absolutely right that Her Majesty’s Government cannot have it both ways. Either the Bill is serious and important, in which case it should be exempt from the Parliament Act 1911, or it is simply the contract for a marriage of convenience and so should fall at the next general election.
Mr Cash
That does not surprise me very much.
One thing that I objected to in clause 2 was the reference to “the number of seats”. We are elected as Members of Parliament, and I am not sure that “seats” are recognised in our constitutional arrangements. Seats do not speak, and vacant seats speak even less. I find the whole proposal utterly incomprehensible. As we well know, the present arrangement—not only in this legislature but in that of the United States and, I would say, all respectable legislatures—is that decisions are taken by a majority of one. So what is this new-fangled idea about a two-thirds majority? It is being introduced for one purpose only: to keep the provisions in the Bill going in perpetuity. That is why I take such exception to the use of the plural in the title “Fixed-term Parliaments Bill”.
This provision also involves an invasion of the principle that one Parliament cannot bind its successor. That is what I really object to, as that principle is central to our democratic process. The people who come in to any given Parliament are not the same as the previous people, and they are certainly not seats or vacant seats. I hope that other Members will agree that this is a very important constitutional question, on which I place a great deal of emphasis, in relation to the new clause that we are discussing.
Mr Cash
I do not deny for a minute that that is one of the consequences, but if we were to carry this new clause, it would effectively be the end of the Bill. As I look around the House and see the huge number of people attending this debate, I do not believe that there is the slightest chance of my winning the Division—
Chris Bryant
I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) on his amendment and the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) on his amendment, which I shall address in a few moments. I should, of course, have called them “new clauses”; Mr Speaker corrected the hon. Member for Stone on that earlier. However, I think that the hon. Member for North East Somerset rather misled the House. He did not do so in any dishonourable way, but he suggested that he was not here in 1911. I do not believe that any Member of this House believes that he was not here then or, for that matter, in 1832 and 1641. If it was not exactly him, on each of those occasions it was certainly his predecessor who made almost identical speeches. So I congratulate him on his consistency, which has lasted not only for the length of a Lib Dem manifesto, but through the centuries, and I am sure he will be here for many generations to come.
Mr Jenkin
The hon. Gentleman rightly points out that someone just like my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset was doubtless here in 1911, just as there was probably someone just like the hon. Gentleman and someone just like me. This House represents a continuity in this great kingdom of ours. He adverts to it with regard to only one Member, but it applies to all of us.
Chris Bryant
I am not sure that that is right because, for example, there were no women in this House or in the other House for many centuries. So changes have taken place, and change is just as important as continuity—that was going to be my argument.
The hon. Member for North East Somerset praised the House of Lords and the job of work it is doing at the moment down the other end of the building, where I hope his father will be stoutly defending not the Government but the cause of freedom and democracy—I am sure he will be. I wish to sound a slight note of caution to the hon. Gentleman. I have long supported an elected second Chamber, but over the past few years the Second Chamber has become far more partisan, because a higher proportion of its Members now take a party Whip. That applies in all parts of that House. [Interruption.] The Minister says from a sedentary position that Labour Members do, but what I said is true of all political parties in the House of Lords. I hope that there will be an elected second Chamber, and if there is the relationship between the Chambers will have to be written down in statute. Otherwise, either there will be permanent gridlock or, even more dangerously, we will face the problem of the Government having absolutely no check on them because they will enjoy a majority in this House and down the other end of the building. I can think of no other system in the world containing no such check. I say to the hon. Member for North East Somerset that although one praises the House of Lords, where Labour and Cross-Bench peers are doing a good job of scrutiny, some dangers are coming down the road.
The hon. Member for North East Somerset also relied on the Salisbury convention, whereby the Lords would not stand in the way of something adumbrated in a general election manifesto on which a Government were elected. In the previous Parliament the Liberal Democrats said that they believed that the Salisbury convention no longer held. I suspect that a convention written in a gentlemen’s club and redrafted several times during the 20th century probably will not stand the test of time and we will need something rather more secure for our constitutional settlement.
As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the Bill extends Parliament’s life beyond the five-year period that, thus far, has been allowed; clause 1 allows the Prime Minister to extend or shorten the five-year fixed term by two months, although that is reliant on motions in this House and in the second Chamber. That is one of the many reasons we have argued that the Bill will lead to fewer general elections. That is so particularly because the Bill provides for a five-year term, rather than a four-year term, as the hon. Member for Stone said, but also because of the special provision allowing for the extra extension of two months. We believe that that is a problem and that the voters of this country probably want us not to have the longest fixed-term Parliaments in the world. If we are to have fixed-term Parliaments, voters would probably prefer us to adopt the policy of the Liberal Democrats before the general election and the policy that Labour has pursued ever since the Plant commission, when we were mired deep in opposition many years ago, which is for four-year fixed-term Parliaments. Unfortunately, that is not available to us in the Bill.
Chris Bryant
I was thinking of jiggery-pokery. Section 2 is being proceeded with not on the basis of consensus across the House, but on the basis solely of an agreement between the two coalition partners, so it would seem to us to make sense to make an allowance in the Bill that the section would die at the next general election. I note that the hon. Gentleman has crafted his new clause carefully so that it does not say 2015; it simply says that section 2 expires when the Parliament that was elected in 2010 comes to its end. At that point, whatever new Government had been elected could choose whether to continue with the provisions or to let them lapse. If it were a Labour Government, I am pretty confident that we would want to ensure that the provisions lapsed. However, what other parties may want to do is for others to determine.
The key point is that we would not want to have to introduce primary legislation to repeal this element of the Bill. For those reasons I am keen to support the hon. Member for Stone. I do not think his new clause quite throws the whole of the ship into the whirlpool, but I think that the throwing of a few sailors into the mouths of the demon in North East Somerset would be inappropriate, and consequently we shall support new clause 5 but not new clause 3. I very much hope that we shall be able to divide the House on this matter.
Mr Jenkin
I survived, but I have to say that it is a very disappointing whirlpool, and that is no reflection on either my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) or my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg)—whichever was representing the whirlpool or the many-headed monster. However, if this is an opportunity to put some instability in the Bill, I will certainly support new clause 5 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone. I have my name on it in any case.
I would echo the sentiment that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) expressed in an interesting speech in response to new clause 3. The question of constitutional Bills is an interesting innovation introduced by Lord Justice Laws, but I would tell my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset that Lord Justice Laws was merely including in his judgments something that had been widely understood by constitutional theorists for some time, although it had never been legally expressed in such terms. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiment and, indeed, with that of the hon. Member for Rhondda that Parliament should determine which of these laws is constitutional and overrides subsequent Acts of Parliament. Clearly, the European Communities Act 1972 was expressly intended to do that, as has been recognised by the courts, and the 1689 Bill of Rights does that, but Lord Phillips concluded in a recent case that the doctrine of implied repeal applies to the 1689 Act.
Mr Cash
We are, in fact, moving into very difficult and choppy waters. With respect to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), I do not believe in the so-called constitutional statutes at all. They are an invention in the first instance by Lord Justice Laws. They have a certain spurious credibility, but it does not stack up. My concern is that we will need to use a range of “notwithstanding” arrangements in relation not only to the European Union but to the so-called constitutional enactments or Bills when we want to legislate in the House. We will also need to require the judiciary to give effect to the latest Westminster enactment in that field of endeavour and to state expressly what is intended to bypass this attempt to establish a completely new regime of codified legislation. That will simply become very difficult.
Mr Jenkin
That was the purpose of my referring to Lord Phillips’s recent obiter dicta, in which he implied that later Acts of Parliament can effectively repeal the parts of the 1689 Act that protect Parliament’s privileges. I do not think that that is satisfactory, and Parliament needs to think clearly about how we remain in democratic control of this country’s constitutional settlement.
Using legislative techniques, such as those suggested by my hon. Friend, is the direction in which we ought to move. Some people will say that means moving towards a written constitution, but that is to misunderstand our constitution. It is partly written and partly not written. The point is to determine who is in charge. Parliament should be in charge, with the necessary checks and balances between the two Houses. So I very much welcome the debate that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset has initiated on this topic. This debate will run and run, even though we might not be able to agree or divide on his new clause.
I put my name to new clause 5, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, partly because it provides an opportunity to remind ourselves of how bad the Bill is. I am afraid that I am appalled that it was introduced in this way. I cannot recall any Government ever introducing a Bill to manipulate the constitution for their own purposes in such a nakedly self-interested way. Clause 2 is simply a fig leaf to ameliorate the problems that arise from fixed-term Parliaments.
Let us remind ourselves of the provisions of clause 2. The two-thirds provision is obviously open to manipulation—assuming that the mechanism does not drag us into disputes with the courts—because if the Government of the day tabled a motion of no confidence in themselves, it would hardly be likely that the Opposition would oppose it, so a general election would still be available at the initiative of the Executive. In a coalition arrangement, the smaller partner might decide not to take part in such a process, meaning that the motion would be opposed and, by arrangement with the Opposition, perhaps passed by only a simple majority. Under the Bill, we are therefore creating arrangements by which a junior coalition partner may switch horses halfway through a Parliament.
I believe that the Liberal Democrats wanted a fixed-term Parliament so that they could swap coalition partners halfway through the Parliament. Lo and behold, we now read in the papers that the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Prime Minister seem to be striking up a new friendship—perhaps that heralds the switch. Of course, I am talking hypothetically—the subject is theoretical—but, constitutionally, the possibility exists. It is extraordinary that we are contemplating putting in place arrangements that could bring about a change of Government, Prime Minister and Administration without a general election, but that is what the Bill provides for. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) seems to be looking at me quizzically.
Chris Bryant
I am looking at the hon. Gentleman quizzically, because, under the existing arrangements, there have been many changes of Prime Minister and Administration without a general election. Although I recognise that the hon. Gentleman stood at the general election on a manifesto that said that a change of Prime Minister should be followed by a general election within six months, I note that he has not tabled an amendment that would have that effect.
Mr Jenkin
Privately, I can confide to the House that I always thought that that proposition was a bit daft—it seemed like ingratiation. Whenever the ruling party changes its leader, meaning that there is a change of Prime Minister, the Opposition always cough and splutter loudly, and express the view that, in all justice, there should be a general election. The newspapers usually join in the fun, because they like general elections, too, but, in reality, we all know that there is absolutely no need for an election. There is usually a degree of continuity when there is a change of party leader because the same party is in charge and it is unlikely that a lot of the predecessor’s policies would be overthrown. One or two things usually change, but generally there is continuity.
We are considering, however, the possibility of a change of Administration involving a different party. We know that the Labour party attempted to form some kind of rainbow coalition with the Liberal Democrats after the last election—[Interruption.] That was what we were told, anyway. Later in this Parliament—perhaps if the balance of power has shifted a bit towards the Opposition following by-elections—the Liberal Democrats could abandon the Conservatives in a vote of no confidence. In such circumstances, the Conservatives might be clever enough to join in that vote of no confidence to ensure that there would be a general election, but it would be far more likely that the vote would be followed by a reordering of the Executive, which might well involve the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats.
Let us suppose that the maths in the House were slightly different and the two main parties were more evenly balanced. The Liberal Democrats then could genuinely choose which partner they wanted. Through the Bill, we are creating constitutional circumstances under which the third party could change the Government at will without a general election.
Chris Bryant
I am slightly flummoxed by the hon. Gentleman’s charming naivety about what might have happened after the general election. The Bill does many things that are inappropriate, but I do not think it does that, and the truth of the matter is that there have been many changes of Administration over the centuries under the existing arrangements, not least in the first and second world wars. Having a fixed-term Parliament does not in itself mean what the hon. Gentleman has described will happen. It is perfectly possible that we will win a significant number of by-elections over the coming years, or that some Liberal Democrats or others may change their party affiliation, and—[Interruption.] It is possible; I said only that. The Minister should do the nice bit again. In such circumstances, the mathematics would change.
Mr Jenkin
Inevitably, these debates always depend on speculation about what might happen, which is the one rather unsatisfactory thing about debating the future of the constitution. I have always been regarded as a bit of a pessimist about the European Union, but I did point out to a colleague that, so far, I have been proved right, and if these arrangements remain the same indefinitely, sooner or later I will be proved right again.
The point is that the Bill—except for this new measure in clause 2—is intended to remove the safety valve that allows for an early general election. However, that clause is the worst part of the Bill. As we were told by the Clerk of the House in his memorandum, before the Bill was considered in Committee:
“The Bill brings the internal proceedings of the House into the ambit of the Courts, albeit indirectly by the route of Speaker’s certificates.”
The procedures of the House, votes of confidence, Speaker’s certificates and two-thirds majorities all become potentially justiciable, notwithstanding the Bill of Rights. For that reason, I fully support the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone.
A vain attempt to remove the courts from considering those matters is made in clause 2(3), which states:
“A certificate under this section is conclusive for all purposes.”
Unfortunately, clause 2(3) is itself justiciable by the courts, because we are putting this into statute. That part of the Bill, which attempts to ameliorate the problems that arise from having fixed-term Parliaments, creates the biggest constitutional headaches for Parliament itself by inviting the courts to intervene in those matters.
Mr Cash
On that very question, does my hon. Friend recall that the 1911 Act goes further? It does not end by saying that the certificate
“shall be conclusive for all purposes”,
but adds
“and shall not be questioned in any court of law.”
I would simply add to that the word “whatsoever” because of the very problem that he has mentioned. The Supreme Court, or indeed any other court, may seek to take control over this.
Mr Jenkin
I put it to my hon. Friend that that wording in 1911 may well have been sufficient because it would not have entered the heads of the judges in those days to breach the Bill of Rights, but we know that members of the now Supreme Court—note the word “Supreme”—sincerely believe that Parliament is within their purview. We have had the debate about whether the sovereignty of Parliament is a common-law principle—that is, part of judge-made law, rather than an historical fact that exists in its own right as a result of the disputes between the Crown and Parliament in the 17th century.
I believe that it would be helpful if I spoke briefly on this matter, and I take this opportunity to commend my hon. Friend on his new clause. Future Parliaments should have the opportunity to throw out the proposals in clause 2. That would not wreck the Bill, but it would invite questions about what it means and how practical it is. It would certainly impel a future Parliament to consider at the earliest opportunity whether the Fixed-term Parliaments Act should remain on the statute book—I very much hope that it will not—or to put in place much better arrangements to provide for early general elections under a fixed-term Parliament system. The Bill as drafted is nonsense and a potential disaster. If we do not fix it in this place, I hope that those in another place will do so.
Mr Deputy Speaker
All I can say is that all the amendments and new clauses have been chosen in the right and proper way.
European Council
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(14 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady is so astute about this House she even knows when I am being whispered to while sitting down. I am hugely impressed because she is absolutely right. I answer her in two ways. First, the new Backbench Business Committee—some of its members are in the Chamber—has 30 days a year in which to discuss such matters. Secondly,—this is the important thing—at this Council, we agreed the type of treaty change and gave some clarity about what needs to be done. However, there is now a proper process, which means that this Parliament has to be formally consulted, which it will be, before the treaty change goes through and there will then be a proper process of parliamentary approval. It is all very well the shadow Chief Whip chuntering from the Front Bench, but I do not remember the previous Government being anything like as generous as to give 30 days for the consideration of Back-Bench business. We just dreamed of such things in those days.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I say that I agree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart): it is extraordinary that we did not have a pre-Council debate. I also wish to press my right hon. Friend on the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin). The Prime Minister said that we will not have liability for the eurozone after 2013, and we very much hope that that is correct. However, the European stabilisation mechanism seems to be an open-ended liability. On 22 November, the Chancellor said:
“we would certainly not be in favour of somehow replenishing it”.—[Official Report, 22 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 43.]
Are we going to refuse to replenish the European stabilisation mechanism while it continues to exist?
The Prime Minister
As I have said, the stabilisation mechanism is based on the difference between the European budget and its headroom. That is a fact set out in the decision made by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling). The debate in Europe at the moment is about replenishing the other facility. That is known as the facility rather than the mechanism, which, of course, Britain is not in. That is a eurozone facility, and there is a debate in Europe about whether that should be topped up and increased. Obviously, from our perspective, we are keen on Europe using the facility rather than the mechanism.
Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(14 years, 7 months ago)
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Adam Afriyie
That is a very good question. I have the figure 44 in my head for the number of responses to the initial January consultation. A quarter to a third of them were completely against the kind of scheme IPSA eventually introduced, while the other three quarters or two thirds raised specific issues that were not directly related to the terms of the consultation. The input from Members of Parliament in a public sense was therefore fairly minimal; only about 11 MPs actually made a contribution. That is a little concerning. I think the reason behind that low figure is that we as Members of Parliament all know that anything we write on expenses that is in the public domain is a hostage to fortune. We have to overcome that reluctance, however, because unless we show confidence and courage and make it absolutely clear that we will not tolerate an unnecessarily expensive system and an unnecessarily burdensome bureaucracy that takes us away from our constituents, we will fall into the same trap we have fallen into in the past. I therefore have a tremendous sense of déjà vu.
The expenses scandal coincided with the run-up to the general election—it was almost part of the general election campaign—so there was a political need to resolve the issue quickly. I think we all recognise that, and I think we all accept that something needed to be done fairly briskly. However, on reflection now, a year later, it seems to me that perhaps in our haste we have lost some time. Even with the best intentions in the world, there have been omissions and errors in the establishment of the current regime, and they need to be tackled.
Ignoring warnings from the Clerk of the House and others, we have created a curious beast. We have handed over control of the work of MPs to an unelected and unaccountable body. IPSA is judge and jury; IPSA is both regulator and the regulated. MPs are rightly accountable to the people who elect them, whereas IPSA is accountable to nobody, yet IPSA can control the way MPs work—it can control the amount of time that MPs have available to them to conduct their duties. That is a curious state of affairs, and if we are honest with ourselves we would never tolerate that set-up in any other walk of life, or in any other part of government or the civil service.
I do not doubt that the chairman and board of IPSA have good intentions, but is it right that the current system continues to frustrate the work of democratically elected MPs? The issue is not about us and our minor inconveniences, but about our constituents and the time that we can spend with them, so we have to be bold in what we do.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
To be completely fair to IPSA, the scheme that it had to implement had already been handed to it by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and if I remember correctly there was a curious collision of timetables, whereby IPSA was set up at the same time as the committee was holding its inquiry. I am afraid that we politicians are responsible collectively for the mess that IPSA inherited from us, and I think that my hon. Friend is appealing for it to take charge, to fulfil its remit and to take full responsibility for the scheme that it now implements.
Adam Afriyie
I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. It is quite clear that the Committee on Standards in Public Life had not reported at the time when IPSA was instructed to create a scheme, so we must take responsibility for that. We were in a hurry—with the right intentions—to change the system so that an external body would set the rates of remuneration and pay, but it is widely recognised that in our haste we created something that needs adjustment.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
I welcome the opportunity provided by the Backbench Business Committee to debate the operation of IPSA, courtesy of the effort shown by the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie). I do not propose to rehearse how we got here, as other hon. Members have done so, except to say that parts of the previous system did not bear close examination, nor did they command public support when they were unveiled to public view. The hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) summed it up well when he said that things went badly wrong.
Things had to change, and the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 was the means by which the system was changed. As the House has learned, transparency was the best way of dealing with the problems of the past and is the best way of doing things. Members know that all the expenditure that they incur will be seen and scrutinised by the public. When the public, our voters, see the cost of the phone calls, the office rent, the stationery, the train travel and the accommodation, which is published today by IPSA, they too will realise that this is about nothing more and nothing less than the tools that MPs need to do their job.
The first point that I want to make is that in debating changes to the system as a prelude to the review that IPSA is undertaking—changes that are definitely needed—we must preserve the principle of transparency, a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and many others, and we must uphold the principle of independent oversight. I gently say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) that nobody wants to overturn that, and nor should we.
Mr Jenkin
Will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the fact that IPSA has said it is not going to publish invoices and evidence of payment? Does he agree that it is slightly illogical to have a system based on transparency and evidence of payment if we do not then publish the evidence of payment, and that that recalls how we got into this mess in the first place?
Hilary Benn
I would make two points. First, an independent body is now looking at those receipts and making a judgment about whether they come within the purview of the rules, which is very different from what happened before. Secondly, there is a balance to be struck between the cost of publishing receipts—it would be very expensive—and total transparency. Since one of the themes of our debate has been the cost of IPSA as a whole, in offering a view, the House will, in the end, have to say to IPSA, “How do we wish to balance that?”
Mr Harper
I am grateful for that intervention. I shall now try to make some progress, as I want to leave sufficient time for other hon. Members who wish to get in.
I said that the Prime Minister would be listening closely to this debate. In July, during Prime Minister’s questions, he said that:
“what is necessary is a properly transparent system, a system with proper rules and limits which the public would have confidence in, but what we do not need is an overly bureaucratic and very costly system. I think all those in the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority need to get a grip of what they are doing, and get a grip of it very fast.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 946.]
That is what all Members have said today. They want IPSA’s system to be transparent, straightforward, not bureaucratic and not costly. IPSA should get on with that.
Mr Jenkin
Does the Minister agree that, as with the House of Commons, IPSA is unlikely to survive a freedom of information request for evidence of payment to be produced? How can it justify withholding evidence of payment—all the invoices—on grounds of cost? That is part of the cost of the system, and it is going to have to bear it.
Mr Harper
That may well be the case, and I think that IPSA has admitted in public that if people apply for receipts through freedom of information requests, it may well have to do that. We will have to see how it gets on. That is the decision that it has made, which the shadow Leader of the House said is a balance between transparency and cost. It may find that the rules of freedom of information affect it as they affected the House.
The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) was right to point out, as did other Members, what happened in the past and the fact that the House made the decision to have an independent system. That is important, as well as the transparency issue. I listened very carefully, but I do not think that anyone during the debate was urging that we go back on that; in fact, Members made good points about ensuring that we retain both transparency and independence.
Hon. Members gave examples of how they thought the system should move and a number spoke in favour of a flat-rate payment, including my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor. However, a number of Members, including the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale), pointed out that a flat-rate system, which does not take into account the variance in costs across the country, may not be a perfect one and that there needs to be some flexibility. They all suggested ways in which that flexibility may be achieved.
We have heard from several Members about their various experiences. IPSA itself has recognised that in the first few months of running the system it made mistakes; it has been very transparent about that. We know that it made mistakes and that it needs to improve the system. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw and the shadow Leader of the House referred to improvements that have been made in the system. IPSA now makes some direct payments to landlords for constituency office rental, it now pays against invoices, and the travelcard can now be used to pay other bills. Most importantly, it implemented advances to Members to deal with the genuine problem that very many Members do not have significant amounts of money and are not in a position to meet these costs out of their own pocket and then claim money back—costs which, as many Members have said, one would not expect any other person in business, in a position such as ours, to have to pay out of their own pocket, and would reasonably be thought of as proper business expenses.
Having said that, what I have heard does not suggest that the legislation necessarily needs to be reviewed. Under the legislation introduced by this House, the expenses system and the way that it operates is a matter for IPSA. No change in legislation is required to be able to deal with the issues that have been raised in the House. Indeed, in the letter that IPSA recently circulated to Members, it said that it will conduct its annual review of the scheme in the new year and will look at the problems that have been experienced by MPs. It specifically refers to the impact of the scheme on family life, which was raised by Members on both sides of the House, and the impact on Members living in the outer reaches of the London area—indeed, in places that most people in this House probably would not consider were in the London area. IPSA has also said that it will balance its requirements for assurance against the administrative burdens on itself and on Members. That is welcome and shows that it is listening.
Under the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, IPSA is required to consult the Leader of the House as one of its statutory consultees, and the Government are considering how we can use that opportunity to submit evidence to IPSA. As Members will know, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is very familiar with the issues raised with him by many MPs, either privately or on the Floor of the House at business questions.
The Government strongly support the principles of independence and transparency for IPSA, as does the shadow Leader of the House. The review that IPSA is about to undertake is its opportunity to deliver a system that remains transparent, which is probably the best way of determining that Members behave properly, but is also more efficient and less bureaucratic. I am sure that I speak for Members on both sides of the House in urging IPSA to take that opportunity and deliver a system that improves on what we have today.