SELECT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Melanie Onn(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for the opportunity to introduce PACAC’s latest report to the House. Our main conclusion is that while there is evidence that the principle behind EVEL commands popular support, we have significant doubts that the current Standing Orders are the right answer or that they represent a sustainable solution to the English question. They may be unlikely to survive the election of a Government who cannot command a double majority of English and UK MPs. The Government should use the remainder of the 12-month period in the run-up to their promised review of the Standing Orders to rethink the issue and to develop proposals that are more comprehensible, more likely to command the confidence of all political parties represented in the House of Commons, and therefore likely to be constitutionally durable.
On complexity, we note with concern the comments of a former Clerk of the House, Sir William McKay, who described the new Standing Orders as
“a forest in which I lose myself”.
That former Clerks of the House of Commons—individuals steeped in decades of learning about the law of Parliament and parliamentary procedure—should have difficulty in discerning what these Standing Orders mean should raise serious doubts about them.
It is regrettable that the new Standing Orders have been drafted, like legislation, by Government parliamentary draftsmen. Never again should Standing Orders be drafted by the Government, rather than by our own Clerks. Revisions made to Standing Orders to make them more coherent and transparent should be made by the House, for the House, as a matter of principle.
On sustainability, our report notes the stridency of the opposition to the new Standing Orders from those on the Opposition Benches—all those on the Opposition Benches—which underlines their vulnerability. Only the Conservative party voted in favour of the new arrangements. The Standing Orders therefore face a high risk of being overridden as soon as there is a non-Conservative majority in the House of Commons.
The shadow Leader of the House noted in his evidence to the Committee:
“It is certainly feasible, if not probable”
that a future Labour Administration would revoke the new Standing Orders. That the Standing Orders have attracted such hostility and can be removed on the basis of a simple majority must raise doubts about whether they can ever be regarded as anything more than a temporary expedient. Currently, they cannot be considered to be part of a stable constitutional settlement that will endure.
It is too soon to say what the constitutional implications of the new Standing Orders might be, but we note the difficulties raised by trying to reconcile EVEL with the continued operation of the Barnett formula. It is increasingly perverse that decisions made about spending in England determine what is spent in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Alternative schemes of territorial funding will have to be examined.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has described the devolution test used for the certification of English only, or English and Welsh-only, issues as “a very simple test.” It is difficult to see how a neat, one-size-fits-all test can be applied to a highly complex, political and asymmetrical set of devolution dispensations. We note that it is highly likely that interested parties from inside and outside the House will want to make representations to the Speaker on how he adjudicates this test. We agree with the Procedure Committee that there is a case for the Speaker to establish and publish a procedure for how he would handle such representations.
Above all—this is of most importance—our report points out that the ad hoc approach to change in the constitution of the Union, which dates back only to the devolution reforms initiated by the Labour Government in 1997, and which has treated Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and, indeed, England in different ways at different times, has been characteristic of constitutional reform since the 1990s. The Government must abandon this ad hoc approach and explore a comprehensive approach for the future of relationships between the Westminster Parliament and the component parts of the United Kingdom. That will be the subject of our continuing inquiry into the future of the Union, and of our subsequent reports on the subject. We are pursuing this by developing conversations, in private and in public, with an open mind to build up trust and understanding between all the Parliaments and Assemblies of the United Kingdom and among all political parties. We have had a successful visit to the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff, and we will visit Holyrood in March. We will issue further reports to the House in due course on the progress of those conversations.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
The report is most welcome, and I thank the Committee for its efforts. The report makes it clear that EVEL, in its current guise, is not coherent, transparent or sustainable. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we now need the wider constitutional convention that Labour has called for since before the election? Does he agree that the Government should support expert views such as that of the McKay commission, which set out an effective system to replace the current bureaucratic mess? We are willing to work with the Government to find a better system to strengthen English voices in Parliament, but it cannot be right that some Members in this place have a veto when others do not. Does he agree that the Government should heed the report and, during their review of EVEL proceedings, return to the drawing board to find a fairer solution that we can all support?
Mr Jenkin
I agree in part with the hon. Lady, and I am grateful for her remarks.. The McKay commission was as unsatisfactory, in many ways, as the present proposals. It is in the nature of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly that English MPs have no say over the laws that they make, so the veto to which she refers is merely a quid pro quo. Interestingly—and I stress this point—the principle behind English votes for English laws seemed to have quite a lot of popular support, even in Scotland, although that view is controversial and not entirely shared by the Scottish National party member of the Committee. As for the constitutional convention, we have not taken evidence on the matter. I do not think that there is an appetite for reopening the entire British constitution to an interminable process that would take years. We need a quicker solution.
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: UK Delegation
Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Melanie Onn(8 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for the opportunity to make this statement on PACAC’s report on our brief inquiry into the appointment of the UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which is published today.
When the membership of the new delegation was announced in November, there was some disquiet among some right hon. and hon. Members, including myself and other members of the Select Committee, about the way the delegation was chosen and appointed. Concerns were raised by colleagues and the media that the way some Conservatives voted to defeat the Government on an amendment to the European Union Referendum Bill might have influenced those decisions.
It has been established practice, until this Parliament, for the existing members of the delegation to choose to retire from it, and for potential new members to express an interest in joining. This was not the case in November, when certain right hon. and hon. Members were simply removed from the delegation by fiat. Some of those so removed had wanted to continue, including my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan). The House should note that my right hon. Friend is a member of PACAC, but she therefore recused herself from the Committee’s proceedings on this matter.
Following a debate in this House to elect a new delegation for the present year, which saw a Back-Bench motion defeated by the payroll vote, PACAC received a letter from my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) and the Committee resolved to invite the Leader of the House to give oral evidence on the matter. We also received written evidence from my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), who is the newly appointed leader of the UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. We also received written evidence from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, although it was very late in the process. I apologise to him for the fact that we had completed and resolved to make our report before his evidence reached me or the members of the Committee. I do regret this and apologise to him for it. Nevertheless, his evidence is published on our website. It would not have altered the substance of our recommendations, but it speaks for itself.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe does not much restrict how its delegates should be appointed. It Rules Committee states that delegates are
“elected . . . or appointed from among the members”
of each Parliament
“in such manner as it shall decide”.
My Committee heard that the Conservative party used a system based on patronage of the leader or the so-called usual channels, meaning the Whips Office. As such, PACAC concludes that the Government have not broken any rules of the Assembly. However, the Rules Committee of the Assembly said that the UK Parliament should
“review with the utmost diligence”
the way in which the delegation is appointed to
“bring it fully into line with . . . democratic principles”.
Parliament is not bound to take any action on that advice. Nevertheless, we recommend that the House should revise the way in which delegates are chosen in the future, on the basis that this is how a great Parliament makes decisions, and we should represent the highest standards of democracy and accountability to our fellow European parliamentarians. We therefore recommend that, in future, the delegation should be elected, not appointed by the Prime Minister as now, and moreover elected by the membership of the House of Commons along similar lines to those on which the House now elects members of Select Committees, but also providing for the gender balance required in this case.
This means that the House can object to the inclusion of delegation members who may be considered unsuitable, as is the case with motions on the appointment of Select Committees. This has not been the case before. Following the success of the Wright Committee’s recommendations to reform elections to Select Committees, it seems only right that the same principles should be extended to parliamentary delegations. The key recommendation of this report is that future delegations are chosen by free, fair and open elections. Subject to the approval of this recommendation by the House, the Procedure Committee would consider how the reform might be implemented, also so as to reflect the gender balance requirement.
We recommended that this system of election could be extended to other delegations, such as NATO, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly.
I very much hope that the House will welcome this proposal for democratic reform in the way that the UK appoints its most significant parliamentary delegations, and that the House will vote to approve it soon.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
Yet again, we appear to be intruding on the private grief of the Conservative party. Although I take no joy in that, I welcome the statement and the report to which it refers. It echoes the collective view from the Opposition Benches that the UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe should be chosen on a democratic basis. We wholeheartedly agree with the proposals in the report.
Will the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) please confirm that this is the first and only such examination of how this House chooses its parliamentary delegation and that, if the report is agreed, under the rules of the Council of Europe it will be incumbent on the Conservative party to comply with the report’s recommendations?
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.