Business of the House
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir George Young
There was an exchange on housing on Monday when we had Communities and Local Government questions. We have taken a number of initiatives to promote housing. There is the new homes bonus to encourage local authorities, there is our streamlining of the planning system to remove unnecessary delays and, crucially, as we heard in the previous statement, there are low interest rates, which are crucial to enable first-time buyers to get on to the housing ladder. I hope that a combination of those measures will lead to a revival in house building, and it is worth reminding the hon. Gentleman that we had the lowest output in peacetime since the 1920s under the previous Government.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his sympathetic tone about the lack of defence debates that we have had so far in this Parliament. We are still waiting for debates on procurement and defence policy, for example, and we are also still waiting for the annual debate on the civil service. Is not the right answer that we should move swiftly towards having a fully fledged business Committee so that we can end the division of responsibility that has led to these problems?
Sir George Young
The proposal in the coalition agreement envisages, certainly in the short term, two Committees: a BackBench Business Committee dealing with Back-Bench time, and a House business Committee dealing with Government time. In the longer term, we may move to a single, integrated Committee, but the initial proposal was that there should be two, side by side. Whether that would resolve the dilemma on which my hon. Friend touched, I am not sure because there would still be tension between, on the one hand, providing more time for Back-Bench business and, on the other, providing adequate time to scrutinise Government legislation. [Interruption.] We are sitting longer in the first two years of this Parliament than in the first two years of the previous Parliament. In the remaining days of this Session, I will see whether there is headroom to provide for more debates on defence, which is what prompted my hon. Friend’s initial question.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
From that hon. Member we can now hear; I call Mr Bernard Jenkin.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I thank my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House for that answer?
Business of the House
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir George Young
I welcome what the hon. Lady says about the Foreign Secretary’s participation in the debate, as I think it is important, as I said, that he takes part. Although a fixed day for Back-Bench business would give certainty, it would not necessarily overcome the particular problem of Ministers being unavailable on a fixed day for debates that are settled at short notice.
On the hon. Lady’s question, we have said that we will give proportionately more time to the Backbench Business Committee to reflect the longer Session. She will know from the business I have announced that the Committee is getting roughly one day a week. I said in response to her a few weeks ago that once we are through the main Report stages of the Government’s Bills, there should be more headroom in the remaining months of the Session to be more generous to the Committee with time.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I welcome the words of the Leader of the House on the importance of e-petitions leading to debates such as the one on Hillsborough? Does he agree that that also applies to the debate on the referendum, which he has brought forward to Monday? I welcome the fact that the Government have elevated the importance of that debate and recognise how important it is that the Foreign Secretary attends. Does the Leader of the House not also agree that these issues overlap with the core purpose of the coalition, which is deficit reduction and the need to obtain growth, and that growth can be revived in this country only if we are able to deregulate our economy and therefore renegotiate our relationship with the EU?
Sir George Young
We are committed to an agenda of deregulation. For example, there is the one-in, one-out rule; there is a deregulation unit working at the moment to see what further deregulation can be introduced; and we are working on the agenda of the report by Lord Young, introduced a year ago. I see no reason why we should not continue with that agenda and still remain full members of the European Union.
Draft Financial Services Bill (Joint Committee)
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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John Mann
The right hon. and learned Gentleman, from a sedentary position, says that that is inconsistent, but there is no requirement for those proposing an amendment to agree on every remedy that would emanate from it.
My purpose is not to make any comment on individual Members but to ensure that because there is a balance between the other place and this place the Government take the issue back and rethink the entire make-up of the Committee in order properly to reflect the Parliament that we have, the elections we have had and the modern world we live in. I seek no more than that, but of course my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, who has added his name to the amendment, may have other, additional and different reasons. That does not negate the argument; indeed, one could argue that in a democracy it strengthens the case because there are different arguments from different perspectives with different options provided. The principle remains the same, however: it is invidious to have a balance of 4:2, four from the Government side and two from all the combined Opposition parties. However one looks at it, that in no way reflects the result of the last election.
It seems to me rather demeaning for this Parliament to go into such a long summer recess with this Committee apparently sitting through it with such imbalance and such bias. This question of priority and of why the Committee is sitting through the summer is another reason why the amendment has been tabled. If the amendment was passed, one would hope that the Government would be forced to rethink at this late stage. They chose not to table the debate earlier, although they had the opportunity to do so, but one would hope that the time for reflection they would have over the recess would also mean that the proposal for this biased and unrepresentative group, in relation to the general election, to Parliament as a whole, to the nations of the United Kingdom, to the gender balance in the House, to democracy and to the world in which we live, could not happen. It seems to me a wrong priority in the month of August, when there are many important things that we could be deliberating and engaging on, for this Joint Committee to be establishing its work. A slight delay allowing the Government to rethink, reformulate and re-democratise the proposal would be wholly in order. I am sure that in their heart of hearts that is exactly what hon. Members are thinking tonight, having heard the arguments that have been put forward. No hon. Member would want to go into this long recess having taken a decision so unrepresentative of our country, our Parliament and the world in which we live.
There is another fundamental issue at stake that has not yet been addressed, which the amendment would also allow reconsideration of—the giving away of financial control and powers to the other place. Important debates and deliberations on the future of the other place are currently going on, such as whether it should be partially elected—80% elected—how many should sit in it, where they should come from and what the time scale for reform should be. Those are all important issues, not least to parliamentarians in this House. Pre-empting that by giving financial powers to the other place—as the proposal is, in essence, a move towards doing—by having it scrutinise the draft Financial Services Bill jointly with this House is a start on a slippery slope in relation to the historical division on financial matters that has existed ever since democracy in this place was established. The proposal begins to unravel that and one might think that there are some within the coalition whose very agenda that is—those who want a proportionally elected second Chamber that has those financial powers. It seems to me that they have managed to sneak in, through this proposal at this late hour and this late stage—indeed, it would have been without this debate had we not tabled this amendment—potentially a constitutional issue of profound ramifications. It would mean handing over, albeit the very first semblance of doing so, financial powers, decision-making powers and authority to a second Chamber that some want to become an elected Chamber in the very near future.
There will be different views about that and I do not intend to go into what those views are—that is for another day—but it is relevant to the amendment to point out the consequences. Hon. Members who vote through this unwise, undemocratic, unegalitarian, anti-regions, anti-nations, badly thought-out, badly timetabled, rushed and last-minute proposal will be opening this House to potential ridicule from future generations who come here. They will ask when was the moment when we handed over to the other place that first little bit of power in relation to financial matters. When did we allow the second Chamber—
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I put it to you that the question of the allocation of powers to the other place is completely outside the scope of the motion?
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I was listening intently and I was about to say, which I shall now do, that we are concerning ourselves in this debate with the establishment, composition and remit of the draft Financial Services Bill Joint Committee, upon which subject the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) is tabling and, I think, speaking to an amendment relating to a narrow part of the matter—namely, a particular member of the Committee. A wider dilation about possible future transfers of power, which might haunt the hon. Gentleman, are not subject matter for this evening’s debate, to which I know he will now return.
Mr Jones
I agree. To be honest, my answer to the question of the second Chamber is ultimately to vote to abolish it. I have always been a unicameralist and think that if we did the job here better we would get legislation that was not only better, but more timely and well drafted, and we would not have the theatricals that we have to go through with the other place.
The draft legislation is being put forward and I welcome that process. I sat on one of the very first Joint Committees in 2003—the Joint Committee on the draft Civil Contingencies Bill. For a new Member, that was a very good process and learning curve, because it included young and inexperienced Members of this House, such as the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) and myself, and Members of the House of Lords, such as Lord Archer, a former Solicitor-General, and Lord Condon, who is a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner. They brought a wealth of experience to that process, which was a good one in that it could not be replicated by the usual way in which we conduct legislative scrutiny in this place. The most important thing was that out of the 130 amendments that were tabled, well over 100 were accepted. The important thing about this Committee will be whether it genuinely conducts pre-legislative scrutiny and whether the Government will really consider changing their proposals.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw talked about the House of Lords. I feel uncomfortable not about joint legislative scrutiny with the House of Lords, which is a good process, but about having it for financial matters. That makes me a bit nervous. Not only the membership of the Committee from this House, but the selection process in the other place, which is nothing to do with us, as I well know, have not been thought through. Getting the balance right is a difficult job. The supremacy of this place in dealing with financial issues has to be maintained. I would not like, as my hon. Friend said, for this to be a chink in the armour that breaks the convention that this House, not the other place, deals with finance. Unfortunately, that point seems to have been glossed over in the way that the Government and the usual channels have put the process together. The Procedure Committee or others might want to look in detail at how such Joint Committees come into being. I would not want it to become a regular occurrence for Joint Committees, including those considering financial issues, to have Members of the other place sitting on them and determining what is taken forward.
It will be difficult to get the Bill right. It will be like finding the ark of the covenant to find a regulatory system that everyone agrees with and that protects the public from the scenes that we saw a few years ago. It is interesting that we hear the Conservatives say these days that they are now for more regulation, even though in the 1980s they deregulated the financial markets and then called for less regulation when the previous Labour Government of whom I was a member were bringing in legislation.
I am concerned about the short time scale that is being allowed for the Bill. The motion says that
“the Committee should report on the draft Bill by 1 December 2011.”
We are about to go into a long recess and the Committee will have to work through that to keep to that timetable. I wonder why that date was inserted. Getting this right is more important than any headlines the Government wish to create so that they can say they have solved the problem of the regulation of the banks. The date needs to be reconsidered and the timetable extended.
Mr Jenkin
If the date is so important, why did not the hon. Gentleman table his own amendment? Why does he think that the Committee that this House is about to appoint is incapable of reporting to the House if it feels that it has not completed its deliberations? Its members have a mind of their own—they do not need the supervision that he is attempting to give them.
Sir Malcolm Jack KCB
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Sir Malcolm Jack is proof that the United Kingdom’s largely unwritten constitution is not only unwritten but living. The mark that he leaves on his office and on the institution of the Clerks in this House is perhaps, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) suggested, a lessening of their deference, not only to Members but in relation to their position in the British constitution. The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), referred to the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, which challenged the supremacy and privileges of this House. I believe that Sir Malcolm was innovative in his approach in taking on a more public role than his predecessors by being a less deferential part of the British constitution.
That is a reminder of the fact that this House and Parliament does not just depend on what we say about ourselves, and on what judges say about us and the laws that we make; we depend, as an institution, for our sovereignty, on the institution of the Clerks themselves. I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North say that the role of chief executive should be separated from that of Clerk of the House. Part of the strength of the institution of the Clerks is that they combine the two elements. Every aspect of this House is subordinate to the work that the House does, which is supervised by the person who ensures that our procedures are fit for purpose.
I pay tribute to Sir Malcolm for the innovations that he has brought to the British constitution and for the way that he has strengthened this House throughout a very difficult period.
Business of the House
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir George Young
Whether amendments are acceptable is a matter for you, Mr Speaker, rather than for me. The motion will be like any other substantive motion and will be subject to amendments. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, and we will seek to table the motion in good time so that those who wish to table amendments will have the opportunity so to do.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Although it is entirely desirable for the House to express its clear opinion before any military action is taken, will the Leader of the House make it clear that the Government do not consider themselves restrained from taking military action before the motion is carried if it is necessary to do so?
Sir George Young
Yes, that is indeed the position. If my hon. Friend looks at the statement that I made—I think—on 10 March, he will see that it refers to emergency action that might be necessary.
Business of the House
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Sir George Young
I join the right hon. Lady in paying tribute to the Quilliam Foundation, which does heroic work in that important area and continues to receive six-figure funding from the Government. I will draw her comments to the attention of the Home Secretary. I hope there will be broad endorsement of what the Prime Minister said in his speech on multiculturalism about the need to tackle extremism in all its forms. We cannot allow extremists to propagate their message unchallenged and we need less of the passive tolerance of recent years and more active, muscular liberalism. I would welcome a debate on that subject.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I ask my right hon. Friend if we could find time for a short debate about the role of the Committee of Selection? Will he confirm that he is aware that one of our hon. Friends, who was elected to this House to major on the health service, was apparently asked by a Whip and a Minister to decline from tabling any amendments or speaking in the Health and Social Care Public Bill Committee, otherwise she would not be appointed to that Committee? I understand that she has not been appointed to that Committee. We are all grown-ups; we know that whipping happens, but are there not limits to how much Whips and Ministers should be seeking to influence the scrutiny process, and does not this make the case for making the Committee of Selection elected rather than full of people appointed by the usual channels?
Sir George Young
I heard the speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) made in Westminster Hall last Thursday in the debate on parliamentary reform, when she shared with those there her disappointment at not being appointed to that Public Bill Committee. I served on the Committee of Selection probably for longer than anyone else in this Chamber as a non-Whip, and there was a Bateman cartoon moment when I called a Division, which apparently had not been done in the Committee of Selection for a very long time.
Speaking personally, I think that every hon. Member should have the right to put their case to the Committee of Selection that they should be considered for service on a Public Bill Committee, and then it is a matter for the Committee of Selection to decide. I personally would welcome the presence on the Committee of Selection of not just business managers but representatives of Back Benchers.
General matters
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Describing a women’s refuge as a “success” is a regrettable use of the word, because in a supposedly civilised society there should be no need for a place of refuge for women and, frequently, also their children, to escape the violence, intimidation or non-physical psychological behaviour of a bullying husband, partner or father. But what has been achieved in my constituency at the Colchester and Tendring women’s refuge, and I am sure at many similar refuges around the country, can be described only as a success. I am sure that lives have been saved; certainly, battered lives have been spared further abuse and cruelty.
In the past year, the refuge has provided a safe haven for 120 women and 194 children. Across Essex, refuges have accommodated 664 women and 701 children—that is an increase of 15% over the previous year. The refuge in my constituency relies on a combination of professionals and volunteers. It represents exactly the concept that I believe the Prime Minister had in mind when he talked about “the big society”. The Colchester refuge could not operate without volunteers. In addition to the trustees, who are responsible for the organisation’s governance and financial health, there are a further 23 volunteers.
Sadly, although the operating costs of the refuge are less than half what it would cost the public purse if the children were put in care—and, thus, removed from their mother, whose whereabouts could also result in a cost to public funds—there is a real threat to its future provision and financial viability because of serious cuts to funding from the Supporting People budget. In Essex, the cut is feared to be in the region of 25% to 30%. We must examine the financial savings—these are in addition to the huge emotional good work, for which no monetary value can be given, of keeping mothers and their children united—from what refuges provide. There would otherwise be a legal statutory requirement on the relevant local authority to fund this money from the public purse.
There is arguably no worse time—or perhaps, given the awfulness of the subject, no better time—than the last parliamentary day before Christmas for me to raise one of the taboo subjects which diminish the claim that we are a civilised country: domestic violence and other abuse suffered by many women. This Saturday, about 30 children, 20 of whom are under child protection orders, will have their Christmas dinner in the Colchester refuge. If places had not been available, they would probably have had to be separated from their mothers and taken into foster care.
The directorate of children’s social care at Essex county council estimates that the cost of fostering a child for a week is £500—that excludes administration, monitoring and other associated costs. The highly respected Fostering Network puts the cost considerably higher. By contrast, the cost to Supporting People of keeping a woman with three children in Colchester and Tendring women’s refuge is £216 a week. Adding to that the housing benefit received, the cost of keeping a family together in a refuge remains less than half the basic cost of £1,000 to keep just two children in foster care.
I am certain that the pioneers who, in December 33 years ago, opened the first women’s refuge in Colchester would not have wanted things to be so desperate that such a facility was needed. Regrettably, such is the scale of the problem that in the second decade of the third millennium this accommodation in Colchester has grown from one property, a former neighbourhood shop, to two large houses. One is a big Victorian dwelling converted to provide individual spaces for women and their children, as necessary; the second is a purpose-built modern building that should be viewed as the benchmark for such provision. I recall attending the official opening of the older dwelling.
There is also a third building, which is a daytime centre providing non-residential advice and support for women living in disturbing relationships. Although the buildings are located in my constituency, the Colchester and Tendring women’s refuge covers two local authority areas—those of Colchester borough council and Tendring district council. The constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) covers parts of both those local authorities.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend for raising this matter on the Adjournment of the House. Does he agree that the concern is that Essex county council’s decision to withdraw funds will result in increased costs for the council? I assure him that the Public Administration Committee, which I chair, is examining this problem in general and is considering how the voluntary sector is affected by reductions in public spending of this nature.
Bob Russell
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, who has visited the refuge and is working with colleagues at Essex country council to try to resolve the financial problems to which I refer. We might disagree on some things, but I am confident that we have shared objectives on this occasion. I also understand that the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell), whose constituency is exclusively in Tendring district, will visit the refuge in the new year.
With a background as a journalist who reported on court cases, and with long service in local government where I came across much of life, I thought that I was streetwise, but in my time as a Member I have been shocked by how some male members of the species can be such “bar stewards”. I am sure that it has been the constituency experience of colleagues throughout the House.
It was because of my growing concerns about domestic violence that I was able, when I served on the Home Affairs Committee, to encourage colleagues to hold an inquiry into the subject. We heard harrowing stories as we gathered evidence. In the course of the inquiry, I accompanied the Chairman of the Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), on a visit to the Colchester women’s refuge to meet members of staff and some of the residents. The Committee’s report on domestic violence, forced marriage and “honour” based violence was published on 13 June 2008.
Domestic violence is a subject that people do not normally want to talk about, but here in Parliament it is important that we do. An analysis of 10 separate domestic violence studies came up with consistent findings: one in four women experiences domestic violence at some point of their lives, with between 6% and 10% suffering in any given year. The British crime survey, looking at England and Wales for 2003, found an estimated 12.9 million incidents of domestic violence against women and 2.5 million against men. Although only a minority of incidents of domestic violence are reported to the police, on average the police still receive one call about domestic violence every minute—1,300 calls a day, more than 570,000 each year.
In that context, the need for women’s refuges is such that it would be wrong for there to be cuts that imperilled their future. We have to accept, as a sad reflection on society, that a small minority of men behave in an appalling way. The Colchester and Tendring women’s refuge provides a safe haven. A combination of professional staff and volunteers do a fantastic job, but I am concerned that the unintended consequences of Government policies—implemented by Essex county council, cutting the Supporting People funding for refuges—could seriously affect what is done. I urge the Government to ensure that women’s refuges are allowed to continue the excellent work that they undertake.
Moving from one serious subject to another, I note that this Christmas approximately 3,000 of my constituents will not enjoy the festivities with their family. I refer to the soldiers from 16 Air Assault Brigade, based at the Colchester garrison, who are deployed to Afghanistan and predominantly Helmand province. Most are at Camp Bastion, but others have been deployed throughout the province, including those soldiers at the forward operational bases, the FOBs. To them and their families back in the UK, I am sure the whole House will wish to send Christmas greetings and its hopes for a peaceful return in the new year.
Finally, to my constituents, royalists and republicans alike, let us look forward not only to Christmas but to the royal wedding. If the republicans do not want to celebrate, I hope that they will still enjoy the day off.
Publication of Information about Complaints against Members
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Barron
I quoted the figures from the commissioner’s last annual report. During the time of the leaks, The Daily Telegraph and everything else, 245 complaints were never followed up whereas 72 were. My hon. Friend will know that they were not necessarily all upheld, and in such cases the commissioner wants to say that in terms so that there can be no equivocation.
The numbers that are investigated and the number of complaints that are not upheld are sometimes published by the commissioner, as my hon. Friend will know, through the commissioner giving a memorandum to the Committee and the Committee doing its own investigation on that basis and publishing it. All the information has been around in the House in one form or another for many years—since before I became a member of the Committee. I do not have the exact figure for the number of people among the 72 whose cases were followed up who were not found to have done anything wrong. If my hon. Friend is interested, I will try to get that figure from the commissioner, but we must recognise that the commissioner works independently from the Committee, although we have contact with him.
The second motion seeks to implement a recommendation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life—I think we used to call it the Kelly committee—that the commissioner should be able to carry out an inquiry without receiving a complaint. As my Committee’s seventh report points out, that would bring the House’s procedures into line with those of the House of Lords and of the compliance officer. It will also allow the commissioner to investigate a matter that has been reported on by the compliance officer and that raises code of conduct issues. For the first time, it makes proper provision for self-referrals, although they will continue to be subject to the Committee’s agreement.
There is a risk, as the report acknowledges, that giving the commissioner such a responsibility might raise public expectations that each and every allegation will be investigated or that the commissioner will turn into some kind of witchfinder-general. Let me make it clear that that is not going to happen. The Committee does not want it and the commissioner is not asking for it.
The amendment to the Standing Order provides for the commissioner to inquire into
“specific matters which have come to his attention”.
There is also a built-in requirement that there must be sufficient evidence of a possible breach of the code or rules to justify taking the matter further. In the 245 cases in the last annual report there was no evidence and they were not acted on. A lurid newspaper headline or unsubstantiated speculation will not lead to an inquiry. The process must be driven by the evidence and the evidence must come to the commissioner.
It is important, as my Committee’s report recognises, that the commissioner has the resources he needs to do his job. We supported the temporary expansion of his office to deal with the increase in the number of complaints over the past two years and, if necessary, we will do so again. However, there is no expectation that that will happen. The current work load is somewhat smaller than that of 12 months ago.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for missing his opening remarks, but it was his subsequent remarks that I wanted to hear. Will the motion allow right hon. and hon. Members to make self-referrals, which we know the commissioner discourages?
Mr Barron
It would do that. Self-referrals would carry on and, indeed, there has been one since the election. However, self-referrals will still have to come in front of the Committee and the commissioner will effectively ask permission, although we do not direct the commissioner by giving permission or telling him not to do things. He works independently of the Committee. Self-referrals will carry on in much the same way as they do at the moment.
Of course we can all help to ensure that the commissioner has the resources to do his job by acting at all times in full compliance with the code of conduct and the associated rules. Members of this House decide what workloads are and whether treatment is fair or unfair by what we do on a regular basis.
The third motion, tabled in the name of members of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, was not on our original shopping list, but we are grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for adding it to today’s business. It relates to a proposal that was put to Sir Christopher Kelly and the Committee on Standards in Public Life by our former Chair, now the Leader of the House, to add lay members to the Standards and Privileges Committee. The proposal was supported by the Kelly committee in its 12th report. Lay members already serve on the Members Estimate Audit Committee and they will soon sit on the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. Lay members provide the public with reassurance that the Committees are not cosy gentlemen’s clubs, where deals are stitched up and scandals are hushed up. They can also bring valuable outside experience and expertise with them. It is common practice for standards bodies dealing with the professions to have lay members, and in the view of the Committee on Standards and Privileges it should be the practice here too. I say that as a now former lay member of the General Medical Council; I spent nearly nine years in that role, sitting with various clinicians.
That said, adding lay members to one of the House’s senior Committees raises some important questions. For example, the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended that the lay members should have full voting rights on the Standards and Privileges Committee. The question is whether that would mean that the lay members could vote on matters relating to privilege. I assume not. I know that the Clerk of the House has reservations about allowing lay members to vote at all, because he wrote to me about it following the publication of the motion. In practice, of course, we have to recognise that any decision of the Committee that was not supported by the lay members present would lack public credibility. It may be that the lay members will not need to have a formal vote to have a decisive influence.
The Procedure Committee might wish to consider other questions identified in my Committee’s report, such as how many lay members there should be and whether they should form part of the Committee’s quorum. The Kelly committee suggested there should be two lay members, but a case can be made for more than two. I hope that the Procedure Committee will wish to consider that. We also suggested that lay members should receive modest remuneration, directly related to the volume of work that they carry out. We felt strongly that to provide the public with the greatest possible confidence in their appointments, the lay members should be appointed to the Committee but not by the Committee. The Procedure Committee may wish to consider what would be the best way of making the appointments, what qualifications those appointed should have, what should be the term of the appointments, and who should be involved in making them.
My Committee’s understanding until recently was that progress on the issue was being held up by the Government’s work on their recall policy. However, a recent letter from the Leader of the House to Mr Speaker has put us right on that, and the House has now been given the green light to proceed. In the Committee’s view, the best way forward is to ask the Procedure Committee to come up with some workable proposals for putting the matter into practice. It is an important reform and it needs to be got right.
Mr Heath
That is a very helpful intervention, and of course the landscape has changed since a year or so ago. We now have the compliance officer in the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, who is responsible for investigating some matters. Having that memorandum of understanding seems to me a very positive way forward.
I mentioned the time that investigations sometimes take and the adverse effect that that may have on a Member’s reputation. As I said, it would be sensible for the commissioner to be open about the process of an investigation, such as when it began and where a Member had reached in the queue, to ensure that we have a more transparent approach. It is also important that Members know at the first opportunity that a matter relating to them is under investigation. It should never be the case that a Member hears that from the press or from a political opponent.
The Government support the move to give the commissioner a power to initiate investigations, which, to an extent, ties up a process started by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009. Without that power, the commissioner would not be able to act on referrals from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority compliance office. That would clearly be unsatisfactory, because the House would not be able to take action against a Member who had knowingly submitted an improper expenses claim. However, this issue goes wider than that; it is absurd that allegations about a Member’s conduct can be splashed all over the newspapers, yet the commissioner is powerless to investigate unless he receives a complaint from a member of the general public. That is an unnecessary hurdle. If we can trust the commissioner to use his good judgment to carry out investigations, we can trust him to decide when to initiate them.
Finally, the Government support the principle, first advocated by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, that the Standards and Privileges Committee should be strengthened by the presence of lay members. Although that is ultimately a matter for the House, the Government take an interest, given the commitment in the coalition agreement to establish a right to recall Members who have been found guilty of serious wrongdoing. There is obviously a potential role for that Committee in the process of adjudication on recall cases, and the presence of members from outside Parliament will help to build people’s confidence in our system of internal compliance. In supporting that, we note the concerns expressed by the Clerk of the House, to which the Chairman of the Committee referred, that if lay members are given full voting rights, they might not enjoy the protection of privilege or their presence might compromise the Committee’s position based on privilege in respect of judicial review. The Procedure Committee will want to look particularly closely at that, while the Government will be taking a close interest as part of the ongoing work on the draft parliamentary privilege Bill.
Mr Jenkin
I am very grateful that my hon. Friend has addressed the question of privilege and lay members, and I am grateful for the Government’s measured and sensible response to this approach. However, does it not begin to advance the argument in favour of having a standards committee that is separate from a privileges committee? If there really are two functions that require lay members to be involved in one function and not the other, should we not have two separate committees, permanently? I shall discuss that in my remarks later.
Helen Jones
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. When the Procedure Committee looks at the issue, I hope that we will be able to avoid that. With great respect to all the ladies and gentlemen who serve on many committees, I do not want to see the usual suspects. I would like to see people who have not been involved before and who bring an entirely different perspective.
Mr Jenkin
The third motion concerns by far the most contentious matter before the House this afternoon. As Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, which is responsible for the public appointments commissioner, I can attest to the fact that what the hon. Lady is saying is absolutely correct. I do not think that Whitehall is the model of how to make public appointments, and in any case there comes a point where, even if we are bringing lay members into House, it should be this House that appoints them, not necessarily ex-civil servants who do not understand how the House works.
Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
One of these three issues—ensuring that resources are available to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards—is vital. It is a tragedy and a disgrace to the House that we did not do this when Elizabeth Filkin was the commissioner. There is not enough time to go back over all that now, but the House does not have a very good or consistent record.
The question of whether lay members will have privilege should not be too difficult. Presumably, we extend privilege to the commissioner, so we ought to be able to extend it in the same way. I do not have a view on whether we should go for a sub-committee of Members only to deal with privilege issues. I shall not argue against the proposal on lay members, but I note that the provision that they cannot have been a Member of Parliament before would exclude someone such as Martin Bell who would be eminently qualified to be a lay member, but that might be the rough justice we will have. I suspect that if there were lay members, we could avoid hon. Members having the dilemma that he and I faced when we were members of the Privileges and Standards Committee and agreed, in one or two cases that we considered, to use the criminal burden of proof rather than the balance of probabilities. I think that we made a mistake; I think he acknowledged that in a book and I am perfectly willing to say now that we did make a mistake. Again, however, the reasons behind that are not for discussion today.
Paragraph 25 of the Privileges and Standards Committee’s HC 67 report says that the Committee had “read with some concern” the suggestion of the Committee on Standards in Public Life that
“MPs should be required to register positions of responsibility in voluntary or charitable organisations, even if unpaid, together with an indication of the amount of time spent on them.”
Bluntly, I would ask that Committee why not spend more time looking at what MPs do in our job rather than what we do with our spare time? In my time at Parliament, I have been a trustee of Christian Aid, chairman of the Church of England Children’s Society, a member of the council of Mind—previously the national association for mental health—and a member of the council of Nacro. I have also been involved with other, less nationally prominent, organisations. I do not think that I would have accepted the invitations to take those positions if I had thought that I would have to log the amount of time I spent going to and at meetings, and I doubt whether I would have taken on the position of being parliamentary warden of St Margaret’s at Westminster. There is a whole range of issues on which that Committee ought to wake up, and if it wants to take advice from me publicly or privately I shall offer it.
Mr Jenkin
Is not the corollary of that recommendation that an MP who went on a holiday to learn how to paint watercolours would have to fill in a form and register it because that would be time spent not as an MP but doing an unpaid extracurricular activity? Why not register everything we do not do for Parliament in our spare time?
Peter Bottomley
I think my hon. Friend makes the point that if we registered what we did not do we would probably have a longer list than if we registered what we did do. The key point is that the general aim of having transparency matters.
The first of the motions introduced by the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) concerns publication. During my time in Parliament, there have been two or three cases in which I have been rather proud of my approach to them and the persistence I maintained. However, two of them ended up with accusations being made against me of being a paedophile, one of which was swallowed by a national newspaper, which published in 2 million copies a case against me. If a Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards took media attention as a basis for starting an investigation, I would object. As it happened, in that case, no other newspaper copied the allegation, and the first settled, at pretty heavy expense to it, and made a damages payment. I wish those events had not happened, but the case involved people whom I had upset. They were bad, mad or sad; I was bold and pretty decisive, and there ended up being a series of allegations against me.
In a second case, a constituent whom I had helped complained to the commissioner that I had taken obscene photographs of his children. The commissioner found that there was no case to look into, but if that person had gone to the papers and they had run the story as they normally would, under the current arrangements the commissioner would have had to look into it. We have to be aware of such dangers. We cannot legislate against all possibilities, but we have to be careful about saying that just because there has been media attention, the commissioner should get involved.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd) about how we choose the lay members. The House has fallen into the habit of finding people seen to be more respectable than we are in order to resolve some of the difficulties that have arisen. Inevitably, they turn out to be former permanent secretaries, but with the greatest respect to those eminent people, they are seen as more respectable only because they have not been exposed in public life to the extent that many of us in public life have been.
Helen Jones
Continuing the debate about who should be appointed, does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the problems we have encountered—we will see this in the debate later on the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority—is that civil servants tend to want to fit everyone else into the civil service mode, and often do not understand the work of a Member of Parliament?
Mr Jenkin
I wholly agree with that point, and it fits with the one I am trying to make, which is that their perspective is necessarily a different one, owing to civil servants’ long and distinguished experience. Very often—it has to be said—Parliament will have been, throughout their careers, perhaps a matter of great frustration to them, and they might well share the feeling of many others about how poorly the House has done its jobs in various ways over the years. I do not think, therefore, that they necessarily have the right perspective—they have one perspective, but it cannot be solely the right perspective. We have to take their recommendations gratefully and humbly, but add a wider perspective to them to give them life.
On the question of adding lay members to a Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), who moved the motion, gave examples of where lay members have been added to other committees. However, those are not parliamentary committees and are not, for example, subject to the question of privilege, and it is on parliamentary privilege that I wish to make three brief points. First, there are members of the judiciary and senior figures in public life who have served elsewhere in public life who are either careless of the question of parliamentary privilege or actually could not care less about parliamentary privilege.
The word “privilege” carries certain overtones. At one stage before the election, it went out to the Conservative party that we should not use that word, because it would be misunderstood and seem to relate to the then Leader of the Opposition’s education. In fact, every Parliament in the world of any distinction enjoys some measure of privilege or immunity in order that those Members can do their job. The reason we had the Bill of Rights in 1689 was to enable the House to function, and we still need those privileges, that protection and those immunities. We hold those immunities not for ourselves and the protection of our own persons or private interests, and not to protect us from the criminal law if we commit criminal offences—as we have just discovered in a recent case—but so that we can advance the interests of the country freely and without fear or favour. These are the people’s privileges. I urge the Procedure Committee, as it considers this matter, to accept the advice of the Clerk of the House. Let me, for the second day on the trot, quote from a note from the Clerk. Referring to the role of lay members on the Committee, he made it clear that he did not comment on the merits of the proposal itself, which I personally welcome, but he also said:
“It is not clear to me that their participation in decision-making by voting is in fact covered by parliamentary privilege. At the very least the matter is questionable and therefore may be justiciable.”
Until that matter has been comprehensively and categorically resolved, it would be sensible for the Procedure Committee to recommend that if the Standards and Privileges Committee is to have lay members, they should not be voting members.
I imagine that it would be extremely hard for the Standards and Privileges Committee to ignore the advice of the lay members, particularly if they are as eminent as I hope they will be. I very much hope that one of them will be a retired judge, for example. I think that it would greatly assist the functioning of the Committee to receive more legal advice, so that it could interpret the byzantine rules and regulations and be navigated through difficult, contentious issues of evidence and fairness. After all, that is what the Committee is about. It would be very difficult to ignore the advice of a retired judge, whether he had a vote or not.
Secondly, I should be interested to know how often votes take place on the Committee. Never? I see a shaking head.
Mr Jenkin
My hon. Friend says “Not never, but not frequently”, and I observed the right hon. Member for Rother Valley shaking his head.
It would be awful if decisions were split on some of the contentious cases that we are discussing. The voting is not really relevant, and I think that it can be set aside until the question of the privileges of the House has been resolved.
We keep running up against the question of privilege. The arrest of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) led to a protracted argument about it. The case relating to privilege has just been resolved—I recognise that other cases are sub judice under the criminal law, so I will not comment on them—but resolving it took months. If we had had a more watchful Privileges Committee entirely devoted to the question, we could have forestalled all that. More to the point, if we got on with the parliamentary privileges Bill that everyone agrees we need, we could put the question of privileges on a much less contentious and disputed footing.
That is my third point. When will we have a parliamentary privileges Bill, so that we can resolve some of these issues? Australia has enacted such a Bill, as have other Commonwealth countries. It is time that we stopped resting on the 1689 Act, which is increasingly irrelevant in this information age whose media are so different from those of the past. Parliamentary privilege has to contend with many issues that were not conceived in those days. It is time we updated the Bill of Rights with a parliamentary privileges Act, and I hope that the Procedure Committee will consider that.
I also think that we should have a Select Committee on parliamentary privilege, separate from the Standards and Privileges Committee. As soon as a big issue arises, what happens? Following the arrest of my hon. Friend, it was immediately agreed—somewhat insultingly—that the existing Committee was not up to the job, and that much grander and more important panjandrums would have to be placed on a separate Committee to consider the issue of privileges. I think we had better recognise that the two functions are different. The fact that lay members will be involved with one aspect of the work of the Standards and Privileges Committee and not the other underlines the fact that there are two separate functions, and that they should be undertaken by two separate Committees. I very much hope that that will be one of the Procedure Committee’s recommendations.
Business of the House
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir George Young
I apologise for any discourtesy to the right hon. Gentleman on behalf of the housing association. He is entitled to a reply on behalf of his constituent, and I will raise this matter with the Secretary of State. I think I am right in saying that there is an ombudsman who can deal with complaints from social housing tenants.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on publishing a very useful card showing the dates of the sitting days of this Parliament, as well as the recess dates, for many months ahead? I congratulate him on this tremendous innovation. It gives me great satisfaction that this has been introduced not by some manic young moderniser but by a true Conservative who was educated at Eton and Oxford.