Liaison Committee

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Christopher Chope

Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

That is a very good point. The Committee is specifically calling for written evidence. Normally, when Select Committees call for written evidence and that evidence comes in, they decide that the most compelling evidence should probably be supplemented by oral evidence from those who have submitted the written evidence. It is, I presume, implicit in the fact that the Committee has invited written evidence that it will also receive oral evidence and will cross-examine, or question, some of the people who have submitted that written evidence, whether it be from Members of the Australian Parliament, the Canadian Parliament or the Hungarian Parliament. Who knows, but I imagine that they will be holding oral evidence sessions. As the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) implies, if an oral evidence session is not within the remit of the one of the specific Sub-Committees of the Liaison Committee, to which I referred earlier, there will be a need for a quorum and for people to be there paying close attention to the evidence.

Where are we going? This is essentially a new Select Committee that is being expanded to cover everybody else’s areas of responsibility so that it can have a grandiose role. It is not sufficient for it to be able to hold the Prime Minister to account and allocate questions to the Prime Minister among Liaison Committee members—now we are getting into the whole area not of the role of Select Committees in holding the Government to account on their strategic challenges, but of the strategic challenges in toto.

In summary, what I am really saying is that I despair. I despair that this proposal has reached the stage it has. I look forward to hearing an explanation from the Leader of the House about why she thinks this is a good move. I hope that she will be able to explain how our fears and concerns about dangerous precedents can be allayed. Strategic thinking is perhaps just the start of a takeover bid by the Liaison Committee of almost all the other subjects that are the remit of individual Select Committees at the moment. Who knows? In the absence of any contribution from the Chair of the Liaison Committee himself, we depend on the knowledge that the Leader of the House has gained from the briefing that she has no doubt received, as I did, from the Liaison Committee.

I am all in favour of strategic thinking and of scrutinising the Government’s strategic thinking, but I do not think that this is the right way forward.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I, through you, apologise for not having been present from the start of these proceedings? I was not expecting this business to be debated this evening; I should have been more alert, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) has been, to the possibility that it would be.

I would not consider it appropriate to try to catch your eye to make a contribution to this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker—unless you deemed it appropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am most grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker; I appreciate the courtesy being extended to me.

First, I should reiterate that there is support among all the Select Committee Chairs for the inquiry. Secondly, the issue is about the effectiveness of Select Committee scrutiny. Many Select Committees find it difficult to obtain information about long-term challenges facing this country, particularly if they are cross-departmental issues. The Select Committee’s inquiry will be concentrating on that. Thirdly, there is ample precedent for Liaison Committee inquiries into the effectiveness of the Select Committee system. That is what the Liaison Committee exists to do and it is firmly within its remit. We are confining ourselves to that.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am delighted to hear from my hon. Friend that the Liaison Committee will confine itself to that but, in that case, why are the terms of reference calling for written evidence by 15 September so widely set that they cover—I will not repeat all those points, Madam Deputy Speaker—which Governments around the world demonstrate best practice in strategic thinking? There are also references to strategic thinking about Select Committees—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I want to call the Leader of the House, so I do not want the hon. Gentleman to read out a list.

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: UK Delegation

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Christopher Chope

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I believe it is the first time that any review of the procedure has been undertaken. That complies with the request made to us by the Rules Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly, but it is a matter for the House as a whole how it takes this matter forward. The Committee cannot bind the House on how it should proceed. Perhaps the official Opposition will provide time to ensure that the House has an opportunity to debate our recommendations.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and the members of his Committee for this very thorough report. What does he intend to do to try and ensure that his recommendations are carried forward, even in the face of implacable opposition from the Government? How can this House of Commons take control of the matter and ensure that its own choices are appointed to the Parliamentary Assembly?

[Mr Jenkin]

I would recommend either that Back-Bench business time be provided so that my hon. Friend can bring forward a motion, or that that is done by Her Majesty’s official Opposition, who clearly feel strongly about the matter. I imagine that every member of my Committee would support that.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Christopher Chope

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

My hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) tabled amendment 1, which is exactly the same as amendments 28 and 29 tabled by the Government. Is my hon. Friend saying that he no longer thinks amendment 1 and therefore amendments 28 and 29 are appropriate and that new clause 1 should be the preferred way forward?

[Mr Jenkin]

I have moved new clause 1, but I shall wait to hear what the Minister says in response to the debate. I suspect that I will be greatly reassured by what he says in respect of parliamentary privilege, and that by removing any reference to the Bill of Rights or any wording thereof, the two Government amendments put this Bill back in the normal category of all Bills, that privilege applies and that the unstated presence of the 1689 Bill of Rights looms over this Bill as it does over any Act and our privileges are therefore secure, there is no ambiguity about that and it is accepted by the courts.

Indeed, I do not expect that the courts wish to be drawn into adjudicating on detailed matters of privilege. It remains uncomfortable and untidy that hon. Members might try to avail themselves of parliamentary privilege when they are not entitled to it and we end up with embarrassing court actions, but that is not an excuse for legislation in this area. The courts have demonstrated, as we saw in the Chaytor case, that they are capable of disposing of those cases in a manner that we would find perfectly acceptable.

Echoing the comments of my right hon. Friends the Members for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), I still have concerns about the implications of the Bill. These measures were drawn up, presumably, to protect Members of Parliament. Paragraph 2 of schedule 1 states:

“A Member of Parliament who makes communications within section 2(3) on behalf of a person or persons resident in his or her constituency does not, by reason of those communications, carry on the business of consultant lobbying.”

How have we written a Bill that could possibly construe Members of Parliament going about their ordinary course of business as carrying out consultant lobbying? Yes, we are paid by Parliament and therefore we are paid, and yes, we are paid, in part, to represent our constituents, but is it assumed that any court might by accident include us in the definition of lobbying and therefore require us to register as lobbyists in order to represent our constituents?

I am pleased that that is being taken out because it was absurd to confine the exemption merely to representing residents in our constituencies, as defined by section 4 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. If I were representing a 15-year-old, I would be caught by the Act. It was an absurd piece of drafting. Why was it necessary to put it into the Bill? I hope the Minister will be able to give us an assurance that the Government are taking it out of the Bill now. That is the right thing to do.

United Kingdom Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Christopher Chope

Friday 18th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that and for being one of the sponsors of the Bill, which is supported not just by me but by a lot of hon. Members.

[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 Chope]

Okay.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Christopher Chope

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I rise briefly to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) on the spirited and coherent way in which he moved his new clause. I should also like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who also made a coherent and spirited defence of the new clause.

It is not my intention to speak for very long. In fact, it had not been my intention to speak at all in this debate, partly because I am losing my voice, so this speech might not continue for long. In fact, it might be cut down in its prime. However, I have been watching the Deputy Leader of the House nodding at some interesting moments during this debate, when he seemed to be endorsing the past statements of his party’s leader. I am waiting with bated breath to see how he melds the previous position of his party’s leader with the present position of the Government.

While he is preparing his remarks, I hope that he will reflect on the fact that the very office of Deputy Leader of the House is, in itself, rather a modern invention. I think that it was invented during the previous Labour Government. I do not know whether it ever existed before—I look to my hon. Friend the Father of the House—because it had never been deemed necessary for there to be a deputy to the Leader—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was the embodiment of the invention. The post reflected the desire of the Executive to create more jobs for the boys—if I may put it that way—than existed before.

There is a simple test that we need to apply to this Bill, and to new clause 7 in particular, which is: does it strengthen the House of Commons? It was axiomatic before the election, and in the aftermath of the expenses scandal, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, that every party leader should speak in grand terms about the need to strengthen the accountability of Government and to strengthen the House of Commons. Can the Bill do that? It cannot, unless we reduce the number of Ministers pro rata to the reduction in the number of MPs. I should point out that my remarks are not some manic attack on the power of Government. There are plenty of ways in which Governments can appoint people to jobs in order to get things done. Indeed, I should say to the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who spoke just before me, that it is possible to appoint more Members from the other place. It is also possible to appoint more special advisers—and let us face it—we have a rash of special advisers in Government these days compared with what we used to have. There are all kinds of ways both of ensuring that there are ambassadors for the Government in office and people to implement the Government’s policy and political direction, and of ensuring that the Government remain accountable to the House.

Ministers do not need to be Members of the House in order to be accountable to it. It is worth reflecting on the fact that as we have grown the number of Ministers in this place, we have left Whips and even Parliamentary Private Secretaries to speak for the Government in the other place, because Governments are so interested in filling ministerial offices with Members of Parliament, to secure their influence in this place. However, if there were more Ministers in the other place, there is no reason why they should not be invited to the Bar of the House to answer questions. That reform is long overdue. There are plenty of alternatives.

I should like to reflect on the term “the new politics” that has crept into political parlance. I am not quite as old and wise as my noble Friend Lord Heseltine, who sat for many years in this place, and who I saw opining, at the very formation of the coalition, that there was no such thing as the new politics; there was only the old politics, and politics would always be the same. That is of course true, but if the new politics is going to mean an increase in the domination of the Executive in the House of Commons, that would seem to be the antithesis of what those who coined the phrase were seeking to convey.

In fact, politics is changing. When I was first elected in 1992 there was still quite a strong element of deference in the House of Commons towards authority and the Whips. Members who were first elected in the 1950s would have served in one or both of the world wars, and virtually every Member of Parliament at that time had done national service of one sort or another. That Edwardian deference has gone from today’s politics, however, and Governments will have to accept that the House of Commons is becoming more assertive. An example can be seen in the whole expenses debacle. I refuse to call it a scandal, because what the newspapers uncovered was much less a scandal in respect of individuals and much more a scandal in terms of the system that had developed, in which the press itself had connived. The outcome of the expenses debacle sent a message to everyone that it was time for Parliament to reassert its role, and it seemed that the party leaders took that message up. What really came through in that episode was how useless Parliament had become.

What is Parliament’s job? It is to ensure that the laws of this country are fit for purpose, to stand up for the liberty of the citizen and to control the supply of money to the Government. Looking at those three tests, we can see that the House has performed miserably over the past decade. More and more legislation, particularly secondary legislation, is passed that is unfit for purpose and not scrutinised properly. The House has completely failed to control the massive growth in public expenditure that has led to the deficit crisis that we now face, and as for protecting the liberties of the individual, I am afraid I think that most of our constituents would feel that the House has been found wanting.

If we are to improve the way in which we do our job, will we be helped if we allow the Government, of whichever party, to have patronage over and to give hope to a wider and wider group of Members, and to instil into the principle of politics in this House that the be-all and end-all is ministerial office? Would that be conducive to a more accountable system? We do not have the separation of powers in our system, but we nevertheless rely on a degree of separation between the Executive and the legislature. I submit that the new clause is exactly the signal about our determination to hold the Executive to account that the House needs to send not only to the Government of the day but to the people at large. We must send this signal that we take our jobs seriously and that we are not going to be seduced, cajoled or flattered into accepting the Executive agenda more and more.

I end with this point. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, who moved his new clause so ably, is a member of the Public Administration Committee, which produced the report “Too Many Ministers?” in the last Parliament. I am afraid that I have to inform the Government that we have already launched a new inquiry, asking “What do Ministers do?”. That might seem a cheeky question, but at this time when there are so many Ministers, we know from the revelations in various biographies that Parliamentary Under-Secretaries have jobs and activities created for them to keep them busy.

When it comes to the Foreign Office, I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Rhondda is right to say that we need ambassadors for Britain, representing both Parliament and Government, but I simply do not believe that to be true of all Departments. Do we need more Ministers to represent the Government in this House? It was suggested to our Committee that Whips speak for the Government in the other place, so why cannot Whips speak on behalf of the Government in this place? Why do they have to remain mute and silent here, as if they had no views of their own and no speaking purpose in a House of whose being speaking is the very essence?

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the irony that his Committee is carrying out this inquiry, but the Government are using that fact as a reason why our hon. Friends should not vote against the Government position tonight—because it is all going to be sorted out in the future by my hon. Friend and his Committee? Can he put my hon. Friends right, and tell them that they need to be in the Aye Lobby for this new clause?

[Mr Jenkin]

I can put them right. As Chairman of that Committee, although I do not act as Chairman in this capacity, I will be in the Aye Lobby myself on new clause 7. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne said, it represents a very modest maintenance of the status quo. That is what this is about—checking an advance or a further incursion of the Executive into the House of Commons. It is a holding position, while my Committee completes its work.