Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (First sitting)

Cat Smith Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That, if proceedings on the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill are not completed at this day’s sitting, the Committee shall meet on Monday 14 May at 4.00 pm and on Wednesday 16 May at 9.30 am.

I am glad that the Committee is finally meeting this morning, but I am very disappointed to have wasted hon. Members’ time, as we cannot discuss a single issue of substance without a money resolution. It has already been five months since the Bill passed Second Reading, with 229 votes to 44. The House sent a strong message that it wants the Bill to be considered in Committee. The Government are defying the will of the House by refusing to bring a money resolution forward, which they have had ample time to do. This is an abuse of just the Executive power that the Bill is trying to keep in check.

At business questions on Thursday, Members from all three major parties raised the money resolution with the Leader of the House. As the hon. Member for Wellingborough said:

“Money resolutions should follow Second Readings as night follows day.”—[Official Report, 3 May 2018; Vol. 640, c. 467.]

The Leader of the House said she would bring forward a money resolution in due course, but who knows what that means in practice?

The Speaker weighed in clearly on the topic, saying that unease on the issue of a money resolution

“should have been heard, and must be heard, on the Treasury Bench.”

He also said that

“it would be appreciated if colleagues felt confident that there was a logic and reasonableness to the decision-making process.”—[Official Report, 3 May 2018; Vol. 640, c. 477.]

The Speaker was referring to the extraordinary fact that the Government brought a money resolution for the Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill on 1 May but did not bring one for this Bill. The prisons Bill came 13th in the private Member’s Bill ballot, as opposed to mine, which came third. The prisons Bill had its Second Reading on the same day as my Bill, and I believe its Committee is meeting down the corridor right now. It would have been entirely possible for both money resolutions to be introduced on the same day, in good time for us to consider my Bill fully today.

Finally, I stress that my Bill is time sensitive. The boundary commissions are due to submit their final recommendations in September 2018. A previous private Member’s Bill along the same lines was introduced in the last Parliament, but it ran out of time after the Government failed to bring forward a money resolution before the snap general election last year. If the Government continue to delay my Bill, there is a danger that the House will not have a chance to debate or pass it before the new boundary proposals are before the House.

I do not deny that my Bill is controversial, but it is also reasonable, and such an important constitutional question—how many Members of Parliament should represent the people of this country—should be fully considered by the House, not blocked by the Government using parliamentary procedure. I will press the Government to bring forward a money resolution ahead of our next meeting, and I hope other hon. Members here will join me.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton for his remarks about his Bill. We all recognise that the review is much needed. It presents an opportunity for cross-party agreement on new boundaries.

I share my hon. Friend’s disappointment that a money resolution has not been forthcoming from the Government, because in December this House sent a strong message that we wanted the Bill to be considered in Committee. It passed its Second Reading by 229 votes to 44. I am sure that the Government would not want there to be a perception that not providing for a money resolution might be an attempt to sabotage a private Member’s Bill and, after all, the will of the House. They would not want it to be presented as an attempt to seek political advantage.

It is widely accepted that the boundary review in its current form would be a disaster for our democracy for various reasons, the most important of which would be the cutting of the number of MPs without a reduction in the number of Ministers. That would only increase the power of the Executive and make it more difficult for Back Benchers such as my hon. Friend to challenge the Government. However, as we have seen, there is no money resolution, and that sends a dangerous message. It concerns the respect that should be accorded to Back Benchers who have had success in the private Member’s Bill ballot, and their ability to bring forward measures for us to consider.

Constitutional changes should be dealt with fairly, and everyone should have a voice. Sadly, that is not happening this morning. I urge the Government to see to the matter of a money resolution at the earliest opportunity so that the Committee can get on with the vital work that we intend to do.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries.

The Scottish National party’s perspective on the Bill, in outline, is that we support it. We should like to amend it in one or two areas and, as the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton has explained, it is impossible for us to do so until the Government provide a money resolution. The Government regularly talk about Parliament taking back control. The Brexiteers in the Government talk about it. An hon. Member has now secured, through the ballot, the ability to introduce the Bill; the House voted fairly unanimously for it to go into Committee; and the Government are leaving it in political purgatory by not dealing with the money resolution.

I want to make it clear that the SNP will not accept a 10% cut in the number of Scotland’s MPs. We want to amend the Bill, but as we know, we can do that only after a money resolution. I do not want to spend endless weeks in a Committee talking shop. Parliament has spoken and it is up to the Government to respect that. If they do not, I think they will find that the consequences will be quite severe.

The situation brings us back to the fundamental point that Westminster is a place of limited democracy, which is exactly what the Government’s behaviour shows. That state of affairs should end immediately. There should be a money resolution, and we should get on with the job.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Second sitting)

Cat Smith Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Monday 14th May 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Committee do now adjourn.

I thank hon. Members and Clerks for assembling again to consider the Bill. I can only apologise that, again, we will not be able to make any progress.

Colleagues will have witnessed the extraordinary urgent question that I asked the Leader of the House on Thursday. It was extraordinary, first, for the onslaught that she was subjected to from Conservative Back Benchers. Members from her own party lined up to attack the Government, accusing them of: behaving undemocratically; committing an abuse of Parliament; denying the democratic rights of Members; breaching undertakings they gave to the Procedure Committee, and sending out the Leader of the House to defend the indefensible. As the hon. Member for Wellingborough put it, she was

“sent to the wicket not only without a bat, but without pads or a helmet.”—[Official Report, 10 May 2018; Vol. 640, c. 900.]

Any Leader of the House fulfilling her duty as Parliament’s representative in Cabinet would have relayed this strength of feeling to her colleagues and come back with a money resolution. Clearly, that has not happened.

Conservative Members joined colleagues from Labour, the Scottish National party and the Liberal Democrats to universally condemn the Government. I register my thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield, Southgate and for Nottingham North and to the hon. Member for Wellingborough for their contributions. I know others would have joined in if they could.

The urgent question was extraordinary, secondly, because it exposed how weak the Government’s arguments really are. After a certain point, the Leader of the House stopped attempting to answer questions that Members put to her and resorted to repeating the same two or three sentences over and over again.

First, the Leader of the House pointed to private Members’ Bills that have made progress in this Parliament. All that shows is that the Government will not block Bills that they already agree with. The function of a private Member’s Bill is to raise issues of public interest. At times, that may involve challenging the Government, if they are in opposition to the majority of Members and the public. The Government should not use procedure to block that, but allow an open and honest debate.

Secondly, the Leader of the House pointed to the financial initiative of the Crown, which is the principle that any spending of public funds must be proposed by the Government. I do not think anyone has proposed that we change that sensible, long-standing principle, but it is deeply disingenuous to claim that the Government are blocking the Bill for financial reasons. The Government do not want to allow the Bill to be debated because it would hurt the Conservative party’s electoral chances. They want to rig the electoral system in their favour and are blocking a Bill that would stop them doing that.

Finally, the Leader of the House tried to defend herself against Members of her own party by arguing that they stood on a manifesto pledging to implement the boundary changes. First, as the hon. Member for Wellingborough made clear, he and others opposed that. Secondly, the Government could show some humility because their manifesto did not actually win them a majority. Thirdly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) asked, do the continual references to the Conservative party’s manifesto mean that we should expect Bills on foxhunting, grammar schools and the dementia tax soon?

The Government are starting to embarrass themselves over money resolutions. I urge the Minister to report back to her colleagues the anger in the Committee and across the House. The fundamental constitutional question of how many people should represent the country should be debated in the open, among Members and in front of the public, not in the back rooms of Government offices. If the Government are blocking the Bill because they do not think they can get enough of their Members to vote with them on it, they have more problems than just constituency boundaries.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I associate myself with my hon. Friend’s comments. It makes a mockery of the private Member’s Bill system that we are here again with no money resolution and no prospect of moving forward on the Bill. Last time we met, the Minister said that continuing with the boundary review changes had been in the Conservative party manifesto. That is true, but that manifesto did not win a majority at a general election, whereas this private Member’s Bill passed Second Reading in this House by 229 votes to 44. It is therefore clear that the will of the House is to progress with the Bill. By not presenting a money resolution, the Government are frankly making a mockery of the power we give our Back Benchers to pass legislation in this place.

I hope the Minister will take the message back to the rest of the Government that we want a money resolution, because we want to have the arguments out in Committee and on the Floor of the House and allow Members of Parliament—who, sitting in this Session, reflect the outcome of the general election—to make a decision. I hope she will take on board the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton and me and find a way of getting a money resolution so that we can make progress with the Bill.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)]

I have nothing to add to what I said at the previous Committee sitting, nor to what the Leader of the House said last week.

Question put and agreed to.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Third sitting)

Cat Smith Excerpts

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 16th May 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

As one of the new intake of MPs in 2017, I am still getting to grips with how decisions are made and how futile the attempts of Back Benchers to get things done can be. I was told that Back Benchers could get something to become law by promoting a private Member’s Bill. Getting a First Reading is hard enough, but it is not insurmountable. Getting a Second Reading is nigh on impossible, because unless one is lucky enough to get into the top 20 in the private Member’s Bill draw, one is unlikely to get sufficient time to debate the issue. Even if sufficient time is granted, at least 100 MPs have to be present on one of the 13 allotted Fridays and then a majority of those voting have to vote for the Bill. To get to a Second Reading is a tall order.

At present there are 58 private Members’ Bills scheduled for the next sitting Friday on 15 June; 25 for Friday 6 July; 23 for Friday 26 October; and 18 for Friday 23 November. That is a total of 103 private Member’s Bills, the vast majority of which will never get a Second Reading, due to the lack of parliamentary time. When a private Member’s Bill does get through its Second Reading with a majority in the House on a Friday, surely the Government should respect the will of Parliament and grant a money resolution to allow the Bill to progress.

Earlier this morning, I looked up “money resolutions” on the Parliament website, which defines it as follows:

“A Money resolution must be agreed to by the House of Commons if a new Bill proposes spending public money on something that hasn’t previously been authorised by an Act of Parliament.

Money resolutions, like Ways and Means resolutions, are normally put to the House for agreement immediately after the Bill has passed its Second reading in the Commons.”

I ask hon. Members to note the word “immediately”.

The Bill passed its Second Reading on 1 December 2017. Five and a half months have passed and the Government are undemocratically disrespecting the will of Parliament, trying to smother this Bill by not granting a money resolution. This is a flagrant abuse of the customs and practices of this Parliament, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East has said. It is an attack on the processes of parliamentary democracy and on the few chances that Back Benchers have to influence and make changes. Parliament is not just the Government. The Government need to think very carefully about their disrespect for parliamentary democracy. Back Benchers need to be heard and respected.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I want to put on the record that the contents of the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton have yet to be discussed in Committee because of the Government’s failure to table a money resolution. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, they have had five and half months to do so and give us the opportunity to discuss the Bill.

The content of the Bill gained wide consensus across the House five and half months ago, passing its Second Reading by 229 votes to 44. I have previously raised this point: this is about the will of Parliament. A lot has happened since the 2018 boundary review, which the Bill seeks to replace. The 2018 review started before we even had the EU referendum, and the number of people on the electoral roll has increased significantly.

The current boundary review, which will come back to the House in October, uses the figures from December 2015, when there were 44.7 million people, compared with the 46.8 million people recorded this year. Those are 2 million people whose voices will not be heard in the current proposed boundary review but which could be heard if my hon. Friend’s Bill had a money resolution. We could then discuss the Bill and gain cross-party consensus, because there is huge will across the House to do so.

We want an accurate electoral roll to decide the boundaries for this House. That is incredibly important post the Brexit referendum, which means we will lose Members of the European Parliament. The idea of losing them at the same time as we lose 50 MPs, while maintaining the size of the Government payroll, is a slap in the face to democracy. It hands more power to Government and less power to the people, which is the exact opposite of the wide consensus of what Brexit was about in the first place. We want an accurate electoral roll to draw our boundaries.

We also want power to be given to Parliament. By not tabling a money resolution, the Government have shown contempt and denied us the opportunity to debate the Bill. They have not respected the, to be frank, limited powers of Back Benchers to introduce legislation. I hope the Minister will be able to offer us more today than she managed at our previous sitting.

[The Chair]

Does the Minister wish to respond?

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Cat Smith Excerpts

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Harper]

It is indeed, but it is also the case that the spending of money is a financial prerogative of the Crown. It is for the Crown to propose spending money and for Parliament to assent to it, as was made very clear by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) in his excellent speech on Monday, with which I concur.

The hon. Gentleman’s Bill involves significant expenditure. It is not just about having another boundary review process; it is also about increasing the number of Members of Parliament by 50, which means quite considerable expenditure. It is for the Government to make decisions about expenditure. His argument would have more force if the Minister had said that the Government were not going to bring forward a money resolution at any point during this Session. That is not what the Government have said; they have said that the boundary commissions should be allowed to report and that the Government will then reflect on the House’s decision making on the boundary commissions’ reports. It is entirely possible that decisions may be taken at a later stage that will enable us to make progress in Committee. The Government are not being disingenuous.

It is also not the case that the Government invariably bring forward money resolutions. I remember an interesting case in the 2010-2015 Parliament, when I think my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) had a private Member’s Bill on a European Union referendum, which, as we know, commanded majority support in the country, albeit a small majority. The then Prime Minister wanted to bring forward a money resolution, but the Government were unable to do so, for all sorts of complicated, coalition-related reasons that I will not trouble the Committee with. There have been other examples that the Leader of the House set out. It is not an invariable rule; it is a convention.

The Minister has made it very clear that this matter remains under review and that the Government have not ruled out bringing forward a money resolution at some point in future. I do not think that the motives that the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton has ascribed to the Government are reasonable. That is all I wanted to say in response, recognising that the motion under consideration this morning is a fairly narrow one, as I thought his points needed to be dealt with.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her kind words and for wishing me well, as I am expecting my first child increasingly soon. It has been a pleasure to shadow her over the past couple of months—there have certainly been some mix-ups with our names. It is certainly one of the more interesting shadow relationships, as our names are so similar.

As this is the last Committee sitting I shall be attending, I want to put on the record some of my thoughts about the Bill. Given that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton intends to keep coming back to the Committee to pursue the Bill, I expect to be substituted in future sittings. The Government’s efforts to sabotage the Bill by refusing to grant a money resolution defy the will of the House. That sends a clear message to Members of the House and to our constituents that the Tories care more about their own political advantage than about doing what is in the best interests of the country.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the Standing Order No. 24 debate on Monday, and on persevering in holding the Government to account. I share his concerns that the Government are trampling over parliamentary procedure and making a mockery of the private Member’s Bill process. During that debate we witnessed a Government who were unable to put forward a single convincing argument to justify their undemocratic actions. The Leader of the House claimed time and again that

“it is for the Government of the day to initiate financial resolutions.”—[Official Report, 21 May 2018; Vol. 641, c. 595.]

That simply is not true. It is an established parliamentary convention that the Government bring forward money resolutions for private Members’ Bills that have received a Second Reading, as this Bill has.

Until recently, the Government largely followed that convention. In 2013 the former Leader of the House, Andrew Lansley, told the Procedure Committee in evidence:

“To my knowledge, Government has provided the money resolutions...whenever we have been asked to do so.”

The Procedure Committee’s 2013 report therefore concluded:

“Government policy is not to refuse a money or ways and means resolution to a bill which has passed second reading.”

The Speaker also made his position extremely clear by saying that the Government should bring forward a money resolution and impose some “logic and reasonableness” on the process.

[Mr Harper]

Mr Speaker can obviously speak for himself, but I listened carefully to his response to that point of order. He was clear that he was not expressing the view that the Government should bring forward a money resolution—indeed, he made it clear that that was entirely a matter for the Government. He said that he felt it would be helpful if the decision-making processes about whether they brought forward money resolutions had an element of “logic and reasonableness” to them, but he did not express an opinion himself.

[Cat Smith]

I will leave it to hon. Members to listen to what Mr Speaker said and make their own interpretation, as there are clearly multiple interpretations in the Committee. What is clear is that money resolutions have been brought forward for Bills that received their Second Reading later than this one, which strikes me as entirely unfair.

The Government have argued that their response to the Bill is about timing and that they intend to wait until the Boundary Commission produces its report for Parliament before progressing. They have taken a leisurely approach to considering the Bill, as it has already been five months since it received its Second Reading. I did not expect to have to leave the Committee to have a baby in the time that is has taken the Bill to progress through Parliament—in December I reasonably expected it to have passed by the time I needed to take some time away from the House.

My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton raised the issue of granting a money resolution with the Leader of the House in three consecutive business questions, on 3, 10 and 17 May. Numerous points of order have been raised too. In February, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee concluded that the House,

“should be given an early opportunity to debate the options for reform and to decide whether or not to continue the current boundary review”,

and that the Bill provided the opportunity to do so. However, the Government chose to ignore the views and expertise of Back Benchers.

It is also completely disingenuous of the Government to claim that they are blocking the Bill for financial reasons. On Monday the Leader of the House told us that the Bill would,

“place a potential financial burden of £8 million on taxpayers.”—[Official Report, 21 May 2018; Vol. 641, c. 600.]

However, waiting for the Boundary Commission to publish its report in the autumn will waste even more money. I am more than confident that the Prime Minister did not consider the “potential financial burden” when she appointed a series of new peers last weekend, which will cost taxpayers more than £1 million a year. Ministers have referred on numerous occasions to the fact that continuing with the boundary review is a Conservative manifesto pledge. The manifesto also included commitments to repeal the fox hunting ban and to address the size of the House of Lords. Where did those commitments go?

The Conservative party seems to have completely forgotten that it is in a minority Government. A lot has changed since 2011, when the original Boundary Commission process started. We have had two general elections and the Brexit referendum and its consequences. This is a hung Parliament and the Government’s mandate is completely different. For a minority Government to defy the will of the House in this way is deeply undemocratic.

The Government’s motives are clear: this is not about principles, but electoral maths. This is not the first time the Conservative party has tried to rig our democratic process in its favour. There is the ongoing scandal of the Government refusing to vote and then refusing to act on Opposition day motions. They have stuffed the Standing Committees of this House with a majority of their Members, even though they are a minority Government. There is also the £1 billion that they gave to the Democratic Unionist party in order to get their legislation through. At the local government elections on 3 May, the Government piloted discriminatory ID requirements that denied hundreds of legitimate voters their democratic right to vote.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is not persuading me with the comments she is making on the Bill. Part of the Bill—about preserving 18 constituencies in Northern Ireland—was very attractive to me and to my party, but the accusatory claims and allegations that this is anti-democracy are really turning me off supporting the Bill.

[Cat Smith]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman takes a look at the impact the Bill would have on the way our Parliament is made up. It strikes me that what the Government are doing is unquestionably about rigging the electoral system in favour of one party, instead of something that is balanced and reflects the view of the majority of the parties in this country.

[Mr Harper]

I did not try to intervene the first time the hon. Lady said it, but I do not think that having equal-sized constituencies can be described as rigging the system. It is a reasonable argument, and something that the Labour party is in favour of in principle—just not in practice.

[Cat Smith]

The right hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that I will come on to talk about the equalisation of constituencies. I think we will find that there is quite a lot of common agreement that there needs to be a Boundary Commission. The current state of constituencies in this country is not one I am defending. I am arguing for a Boundary Commission in order to have new boundaries, so that our constituencies can be more equally sized—something we would all like to see—but in a way that is fair and represents community ties.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I apologise, Chair, for being late; I have sprained my wrist. One of the issues about the size of constituencies is that one of the proposed constituencies under the new boundary review in Scotland would be the size of Cyprus. That is not practically possible. There is a wider point here, because when we lose all our Members of the European Parliament and Parliament takes back control, we will have fewer MPs to scrutinise all this legislation. Then, when they go back to their constituencies, they will have to try to get around by helicopter, given the size of the constituencies the Government are proposing.

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. I wish him a speedy recovery with his arm, which looks very painful.

I think we are all largely in agreement that the boundary review is needed; that is not something I am arguing against. Updating boundaries is a vital part of the functioning of our electoral system. However, it has to proceed in a way that benefits our democracy and not just one political party. The political case presented by the Government for reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 600 is completely flawed. The Hansard Society found no rationale for the Government’s decision, noting that there was a “real concern” that the number had been,

“plucked from thin air—600 simply being a neat number.”

Cutting 50 MPs also presents a “crisis of scrutiny”, a concern raised by the Electoral Reform Society. The Government’s current plan, to reduce the number of MPs in Parliament without reducing the number of Ministers, will only increase the power of the Executive. That will make it more difficult for Back Benchers to challenge the Government, which in turn will reduce Parliament’s ability to hold the Government to account. As we are witnessing today, the Government fear challenge, loathe scrutiny and have no respect for Back Benchers.

The need for parliamentary scrutiny has never been greater as our nation prepares to leave the European Union. As the hon. Member for Glasgow East mentioned, to lose 50 MPs at the same time as taking back powers from Brussels risks leaving the UK Government struggling to keep up with the day-to-day requirements of legislation. In short, what seemed like a good idea in 2011 is very different in 2018, because so much has changed. As MPs’ workload looks set to rise—

[The Chair]

Order. I remind the Committee that the question before us is whether we adjourn until next Wednesday. This is not a debate on the merits of the Bill or wider-ranging arguments.

[Cat Smith]

Thank you, Ms Dorries. I will bring my remarks to a close. I believe that this is my one opportunity to put on the record my thoughts on the Bill, so I thank the Committee for indulging me slightly, and I apologise for any offence that may have been caused to the Chair.

Although this is the last sitting that I will attend, I hope that the Committee will continue to meet, because this is an important Bill and many aspects of it are important to our democracy. I believe that Governments should be held to account and that the power of the Executive should not get so strong that Back Benchers have no power. I hope that the Government are listening and that they will, at the earliest opportunity, table a money resolution to allow the Bill to progress. We can then argue about the merits of the Bill and debate its contents, and whoever takes my place on the Committee will be able to have the argument. The Committee has met time and again. I am sure that the Minister does not want to sit here every Wednesday morning, but I can assure her that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton will make sure that she is here every Wednesday until the money resolution is brought before the House.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—