Scheduling of Parliamentary Business

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz]

No. The hon. Lady will get the same answer that Mr Speaker would give—it is up to me to decide whether I give way. I just want to proceed.







Then there is the question of the days allocated for private Members’ Bills: 13 have been allocated up until November 2018—that is 18 months, although the current Session lasts for two years. Why have no Opposition days been allocated? Are the Government scared of the Opposition? No dates have been agreed for Backbench Business debates, despite the diligence of the Opposition in having a Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.

I repeat the Prime Minister’s words: “debate and discussion” are

“the hallmarks of our parliamentary democracy”,

although it seems that her Cabinet are busy trying to push her out. The Government need to know that, for our democracy to thrive, the citizens of this country need to have faith that their MPs will represent their views and not be disfranchised. It is vital for democracy to have debates when required by convention, and for the Opposition to set out what they stand for. The electorate need to see us at work—to see the rhetoric turned into action.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

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[Andrea Leadsom]

As soon as possible, and within the normal timeframe for establishing Select Committees.

The Opposition make a comparison with the 2015 general election, saying that, by the summer recess following the vote, Select Committees had been established and Opposition days had been held. However, the election in 2015 was in May, not June, and there were 32 sitting days between the Queen’s Speech and the summer recess. Between the Queen’s Speech and the summer recess this year, there will have been only 18 sitting days.

Let us look at our record on providing Opposition day debates versus the record when the Labour party was in government. Let us use the Opposition’s assumption that each Session should be one year and that there should be 20 Opposition days each year. On their reckoning, between 1997 and 2010, when Labour was in office, Opposition parties were short by 35 Opposition days. By the same calculation, and using the Opposition’s assessment, they have had one more day than their allocation between 2010 and today.

[Chris Bryant]

I have to say that it is a bit rich of the Leader of the House to give us the number of days between the Queen’s Speech and the recess, since the Government set the date of the recess and delayed the date of the Queen’s Speech. In 1997, how many days were there before the recess? Two. In 2001? One. In 2005? Five. In 2010? Two—and that is when the Conservatives had to cobble together a ludicrous Government. In 2015? Five. So she is talking through a hole in her head. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

It may have been a case of mistaken identity, but I thought I detected a Somerset burr in the voice saying, “Order.” My judgment is that what the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has said was not disorderly; whether it was in entirely good taste is a matter for people’s judgment. However, the Leader of the House is a robust character, and I think she is unfazed. The only other observation I make at this stage—the Leader of the House has referred to me a number of times—is that, just as a point of fact, the tears in my eyes on Centre Court yesterday were tears of joy for the greatest of all time.

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[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is aware that Front Benchers are usually accorded a modest latitude in developing their arguments, hence I have allowed a modest latitude, but I think the Leader of the House will shortly return to the thrust of the matter under debate—not what might have been under debate but what is under debate. I know that she will focus on that; I am perfectly sanguine on that score.

[Chris Bryant]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I do not think there is a “further”, but I will indulge the hon. Gentleman.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful, Mr Speaker. The Leader of the House has said quite categorically that she believes that the debate we are having now is completely irrelevant and the far more important one will take place later on. I just wonder, because I noticed the number of Conservative Members who stood to catch your eye earlier, whether you think that more Conservative Members would like to take part in this debate or in the debate that the Government have scheduled for later tonight.

[Mr Speaker]

The answer is that lots of Members are wanting to speak today. In this debate, which can last for a maximum of three hours, a lot of Government Back Benchers wish to speak. I am keen to accommodate both Government Back Benchers and Opposition Back Benchers, and I am certainly keen to accommodate would-be maiden speakers. Therefore, if we can now minimise points of frustration and focus on the debate, I think that would be beneficial to all concerned.

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[Pete Wishart]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has reminded me of that. How could I forget my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar?

[Chris Bryant]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

This will be the last intervention I take for a while, because we need to make some progress.

[Chris Bryant]

I just wanted to say that votes are still being cast for Labour membership of the Foreign Affairs Committee, so if any Labour Members have not yet voted, they have until 8.30 to do so. [Interruption.]

[Pete Wishart]

I think I am grateful for that intervention. It seems to have energised Conservative Members, so it must have been particularly good.

It is not as if this Government have been over-exercised or energised by business thus far. Perhaps unfairly, this Parliament has already been dubbed the zombie Parliament, but I think that that comparison gives the flesh-eating undead a bad name. This is turbo-charged political zombie-ism, but a curious type of zombie-ism, because the Government are not only tearing flesh from the public but starting to consume themselves. If we look around Whitehall, we see that what passes for normal discourse among Secretaries of State amounts to briefing and counter-briefing. I say to the Leader of the House that this is what happens when Governments do nothing—bad stuff happens. This is a Government at war with itself, where briefing and counter-briefing take precedence as they all jostle and compete to be the next captain of the SS Tory Titanic.

According to one anonymous Minister, the Chancellor is trying to “stymie” Brexit. If only he would get on with it! Apparently he believes that Brexiteers are a “bunch of smarmy pirates”, whatever a smarmy pirate is. I have an image in my head of a cross between Captain Pugwash and Jack Sparrow re-enacting the battle of the Thames between Nigel Farage and Bob Geldof. I do not know what a smarmy pirate is but—shiver me timbers and pieces of eight—I wouldn’t mind being one myself.

The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) says that the plotters should

“just shut up for goodness’ sake”,

which would deprive this House of so much comedy value. The International Trade Secretary says that members of the Cabinet “should drink less prosecco”. And there was I thinking, “Cheap prosecco? Surely only the finest champagne is good enough for my Conservative friends.” According to the Transport Secretary, there is nothing to see here, concluding:

“We’re not a group of clones.”

Well, thank goodness for that. It is no wonder that the Government do not want scrutiny when they are in such chaos and turmoil.

I agree with the Leader of the House on one thing, namely the question of public enthusiasm for this debate. During my surgeries over the weekend, I did not notice any banners calling for more Opposition days for the Labour party or for sorting out the membership of statutory Committees. The issue is important, however, and I think that our constituents expect us to come down here to ensure that we arrange the optimal conditions for debate and scrutiny and get on with the job of ensuring that this Government are held to account.

This is a very different type of Parliament. Perhaps that will excuse the Government’s behaviour in not getting things back in place. I do not think there has been such uncertainty about a Parliament lasting a full term since the 1970s and the days of Callaghan and Wilson. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 has proved to be possibly the biggest waste of parliamentary time in history. It was supposed to give certainty to the scheduling of parliamentary debates, but it was always going to fail when a Government wanted to have an early election, assisted by an Opposition who would not be able to resist.

We therefore have a Parliament and Government on political life support, always requiring emergency treatment and always vulnerable to the infection of events as they try to define some sense of purpose and meaning. The Government’s condition is all their own fault. After hubristically and unnecessarily calling an early election to try to take advantage of the crisis and chaos that they observed in the Labour Opposition, they have returned humbled, embarrassed, diminished, chaotic and in turmoil.

This is most definitely a House of minorities, and the way in which we conduct our business and scrutinise legislation must reflect that. Arrangements must be put in place to ensure that the new political arithmetic across the House is observed. That is why it has been profoundly disappointing that instead of rising properly to the challenge, the Government have done all they can to frustrate, delay and thwart the creation of all the arrangements that are essential for proper scrutiny in these new conditions. The Government’s main strategy has been to try to make their legislative programme as opaque, meaningless and uncontentious as possible. They hope that we will get bored and take little interest in it, so that they will not lose any votes in Parliament.

The only thing that will be contentious—the one big deal of this parliamentary term—will be Brexit. Of course, the Government are unburdened in that regard, too. When it comes to the main themes of the Government’s hard Brexit, the Labour Opposition agree with practically everything that the Government want to achieve, whether the leaving of the single market, the leaving of the customs union or the ending of freedom of movement. The Government will therefore have no difficulty getting their Brexit business through, on top of a legislative programme that is so light it is almost totally opaque.

We also have to look at what was agreed in the early days of this Parliament. One of the most concerning and damaging of all the initiatives that the Government have embarked on is the appalling deal that they struck, right at the outset, with the Democratic Unionist party. That deal was agreed behind closed doors, and the House has not had the opportunity to debate it, scrutinise it properly or consider its consequences—not least how it turns the normal and usual funding allocations for the nations of the United Kingdom on their head. This is a deal designed to buy the Government their majority, and it has unfortunately set the tone for this Parliament and defined the Government’s contemptuous approach to their business.

The other thing that has to go, very early on, is the appalling and divisive English votes for English laws procedure, which is opposed and loathed by every political party in this House apart from the governing Tories. It is clear that it no longer secures a parliamentary majority in this House, and it is ridiculous that in order to get their business through, the Government have to rely on a party that is subject to the constraints of EVEL. EVEL is disruptive to the House, and it divides the membership of this House by geography and nationality. Its days should surely be numbered. Let us get shot of it from our Standing Orders and see whether we can, through debate, secure a solution on which we can achieve consensus. Let us get something that reflects proper scrutiny and attention and serves all the nations of the United Kingdom.

We need to get down to business. It is simply unacceptable that the Select Committees will not be up and running before the recess. We have had a little exchange about where we are in the logjam of creating the Select Committees. I hope that the Leader of the House will take the matter seriously, so that we can get on and do it. We have to have the Standing Committees in place. Because we have no Standing Committees, Bills cannot receive proper consideration at Committee stage, so the Government have had to bring Bills before Committees of the whole House. Three Bills have been subject to that procedure. No Statutory Instrument Committees have been set up, and, as a result, we will be considering another statutory instrument after this debate. The situation is clearly unsatisfactory, and it is unacceptable for it to continue.

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[Mims Davies]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Far from weakening our democracy, the Conservatives in this Government have strengthened it by giving our constituents more voices and by turning up at the debates that have been held.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Lady referred to the WASPI issue. What we want is a votable motion so that she can prove that she is with us and with the WASPI women. How will she vote when there is a votable motion?

[Mims Davies]

As a former chair of the all-party parliamentary group for women in Parliament, I certainly have a lot of sympathy when it comes to the WASPI women, but Government finances are difficult, as we have heard. I would certainly like us to find a way to help those most affected, and I have made those points in every single debate in which that has been possible.

We have given our constituents a chance to have a voice. One area in which we have done so is through e-petitions. I know that has happened, because I have found the voice of my constituents in my inbox, and I thank them for that. The 10 years of its operation has provided the chance for Parliament to reach into people’s homes and lives, with 10 million people signing petitions and no fewer than 20 petitions being scheduled for debate. E-petitions have engaged us in various subjects in this debating Chamber, and I have been delighted about that, particularly, thinking back to my time on the Women and Equalities Committee, those on transgender issues. This Parliament is more diverse and outward-reaching than people will ever know, but the problem with debates such as this one is that we will look more enclosed.

The Government have looked to ensure that the most talented MPs from across the House get a chance to feed into in-depth policy discussions and I congratulate all the Members who have been elected to be Select Committee Chairs. By contrast, we know that during Labour’s period in office the time for Prime Minister’s questions was reduced and there were complaints of sofa-style government. In fact, the complaint was always that the media was told first and the Chamber second; we do not see that from this Government.

I will conclude as I know we are pressed for time. Her Majesty’s Opposition have tried today to make out that there is one rule for us and another rule for everybody else. However, all of us in this Chamber are defenders of democracy, and we can see that if we use all the tools and instruments, we will have a voice for our community. So I think that Opposition Members would do well to listen to us on strengthening democracy. They should take a very serious look at taking a leaf out of our book when it comes to hearing from our constituents and reflecting what matters to them.

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[Kelly Tolhurst]

No, I want to make some progress.

I am surprised that the Opposition are complaining about the amount of time they have had to debate issues that are important to them. Since the election, we have had six days of debate on the Queen’s Speech, which many Opposition Members took part in. They had an opportunity to have their say in those debates. We have also had numerous urgent questions involving current issues and matters that are relevant to our constituents. I cannot speak about what happened before 2015, because that is when I was elected, but I have looked back over the past two years. There have been a number of debates on Government business and on important pieces of legislation which have not taken the full allocation of time because there was little appetite from the Opposition to join in. One occasion in particular takes me back.

The Children and Social Work Bill was one of the biggest pieces of legislation on children and social work for a number of years. Interestingly, it did not use up all its debating time on Second Reading, on Report or on Third Reading. However, interestingly, when we were debating an amendment on unaccompanied minors that had been tabled to grab the headlines, the Opposition Benches were packed. As soon as the amendment had passed, the Chamber emptied again. In fact, only one Opposition Member spoke on that Bill, which covered issues such as advisers for care leavers and adoption. Did the Opposition feel that those key issues in that massive piece of legislation would not quite grab the headlines? I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) that tonight’s debate seems to be about political point scoring and the Opposition trying to grab headlines when they think it will matter.

We have two years ahead of us in which, as the Government make progress, to debate the biggest piece of legislation that this Parliament has seen for many years. It covers something that my constituents are extremely concerned about. They are concerned that we should debate the issues properly and that we get the right legislation through the House, so it is absolutely correct that that must be the focus on both sides of the House. We must have enough time to debate that issue—

[Chris Bryant]

What is it?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

It is the issue of Brexit: the laws that will come through and the intricacies of what will happen when we leave the European Union.

Really, I think the Opposition should get over themselves a bit. As many of my hon. Friends have pointed out, 20 Opposition day debates have been put aside, which will give Labour 17 to take part in. I look forward to joining in those debates when they occur—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who is sitting at the back there, has spent the whole debate being quite rude, not only to the Leader of the House but to me. What a shame—

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[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair), who made an absolutely sterling, brilliant Union speech. I concurred with nearly everything she said in it, apart from the political stuff—[Interruption.] Well, the party political stuff. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova)—who is not in her place at the moment—also made an exemplary speech. It is nice to hear a Member paying tribute to their mother in the Chamber, and my hon. Friend did that beautifully and elegantly.

It is a shame that I am following the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst), because I am actually rather fond of her, having spent a great deal of time in her constituency contributing to the Labour party coming third in the by-election. She said that Labour Members needed to get over themselves and get on with it. Yes, we would like to get on with the business of opposition; the problem is that we are not being given the Opposition days on which to be the honourable Opposition. That is the whole point. I apologise to the Leader of the House; I was rude to her earlier. I actually like her, and there are some things that I want out of her, so I am going to be nice to her now. Seriously, I was rude earlier, but I feel strongly about such issues.

The Government and Government Members need to bear it in mind that the power of the Executive in our parliamentary system is quite phenomenal. Standing Order No. 14 says that the Government have complete control over the timetable. They get to decide when they are going to give days to the Opposition, to private Members’ Bills and to the rest, but Government business always takes precedence. Standing Order No. 48 says that only the Government can table motions relating to money and taxation. We do not have a proper Budget; we have a Budget speech. This House does not actually decide on the process of how money is allocated at all. Standing Order No. 83A means that only the Government can table a programme motion, so only the Government can decide how much time we are going to devote to each element. Even in the utter nitty-gritty of the Welsh Grand Committee, only the Government can table a motion under Standing Order No. 108 to say when we are going to have a Welsh Grand Committee, what it will debate and all the rest of it.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is also speaking through a hole in his head. It is just a biological fact, and I hope he does not think I am being rude.

My hon. Friend is describing a fundamental principle of this place, and that is actually what this debate is about—it is not a debate about debates. The principle is that the Government have their way, but the Opposition have their say. By denying us Opposition days while having their way about extending the Session to two years, the Government are breaching that fundamental principle of Parliament.

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, we have had several Sessions that lasted only several months because of early general elections or because, in the old days, the parliamentary Session started in November and then ended in the spring. We did not suddenly have 17 Opposition days because that is the fixed number of such days in a Session. Since Richard Crossman introduced these in November 1967, the whole idea of the change from Supply day debates to Opposition day debates was that the Opposition would have a fair amount of guaranteed time during the year.

This is not just about the Standing Orders; the Government have the absolute power to decide on the date of the Prorogation and how long a Session will be. That is only in the hands of the Government, not in our hands or the House’s hands. The Government get to decide when we will adjourn and go into recess. Only Government amendments are guaranteed to be considered on Report, and only the Government can table an amendment to the Standing Orders and be certain that it will be debated. That is a phenomenal tying up of power in the hands of the Executive, and the only thing that the Opposition have in return is the expectation that the Leader of the House and the Government will exercise fair play.

[Pete Wishart]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for totally forgetting his constituency during my contribution. How could I forget that he is the hon. Member for Rhondda? May I suggest a solution that he may like to think about and put to the Leader of the House? If there is going to be an issue with Opposition days, one way around this is through unallotted days, which were used in 2015 to 2017. I am sure that he will remember that they were also used in 2001. What is the reason for not giving unallotted days? The Government could just say how many of them they were going to give.

[Chris Bryant]

They could do that. In the 2010 to 2012 Session, the problem was that we did not know that it was going to be a two-year Session until the Session moved along. The Government kept on refusing to announce whether there would be a Prorogation or a two-year Session, so it is not an exact match with what we have now. The Government have already said that this will be a two-year Session, so they should be able to say that there will be a proportionate number of Opposition days and days for private Members’ Bills and Back-bench business. Any ordinary member of the public would say that that is what everybody would genuinely expect.

The hon. Members for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) and for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) said that all this stuff does not really matter and that it is not about democracy. I would ask them just to remember that the big row in this House in 1939 was about whether the House should adjourn in August when there was a fear of war with Germany. That was the row. It was not about some grand piece of legislation; it was about whether the House should adjourn. Ronald Cartland—the younger brother of Barbara Cartland—who was killed while serving bravely in the second world war and who has a shield on the wall of the Chamber, accused Chamberlain of having “ideas of dictatorship” because Chamberlain was using the undoubted power that Government had to decide when the Adjournment was and he thought that that was wrong, especially in a House that was largely composed of Conservative Members.

Another problem is that the recent move towards lots and lots of secondary legislation might be okay if what the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has regularly said in the House were true—namely, that if a piece of secondary legislation is prayed against, it will always come to the House—but it is not. Between 2010 and 2016, 69 pieces of secondary legislation—statutory instruments—tabled by the Government were prayed against by the Opposition. According to the “David Davis” rule, it should have been guaranteed that they would be debated on the Floor of the House, but how many of the 69 were debated in the House? Three. Eight were debated in Committee, but the debates in Committee were not about whether they were good statutory instruments; they were on whether the matter had been considered. Even if every single member of the Statutory Instrument Committee had voted no, the measure would still have gone on the statute book.

When the Government come forward with something called the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which wants to give massive amounts of secondary legislative power to the Government, the Opposition are very sceptical. That is when it starts to look like, in the words of Ronald Cartland, “ideas of dictatorship”, not because any of the individual members of the Government think of themselves as dictators, but because the power that this House has, over the years, given to Government over every element of the agenda is so important.

Several people have already made the point that we should have had an Opposition day by now. I say to the hon. Member for Eastleigh that there is a vital difference between a hot-air debate that ends with a vote on whether we are going to adjourn, as we had at the end of the WASPI debate, and a substantive motion on the Order Paper that has effect, either because it is legislation or because it is an Opposition day debate. When Labour were in government and had a majority, we lost an Opposition day debate on the Gurkhas and that changed what happened—several of us here have scars from that debate. In the end, the Government cannot always run away from those kind of debates. I say to Conservative Members that there has to come a point when the whole House has to consider the long-term future of how we do our business, not just the partisan advantage of today.

[Mims Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

If the hon. Lady does not mind, I will not because I want to—

[Mims Davies]

You are talking about me.

[Kevin Brennan]

She has a very good point.

[Chris Bryant]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) says, the hon. Lady has a very good point, so I will give way.

[Mims Davies]

The hon. Gentleman is very kind. As a former shadow Leader of the House—I enjoyed his speeches when he was sitting where the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) is—will his constituents in Rhondda really think that the time that this House is spending debating parliamentary business is what we should be doing in the last week before the recess? I said in my speech that jobs, opportunities and schools are what really matter.

[Chris Bryant]

Of course, there are lots and lots of things that we should debate. I would like a debate in Government or Opposition time—I do not mind—with a votable motion on the WASPI campaign. I know exactly how I am going to vote, and I hope that I will able to persuade the hon. Lady to join us in the Lobby. We can have as many warm-words debates as we want, but if there is no vote at the end, our constituents will feel fundamentally let down. I say to Conservative Members that they would be better off having that debate sooner rather than later; otherwise, they will have an awful lot of upset people.

If the Government had a programme, I would be happy for us to debate that programme, but there is no legislation. The Leader of the House referred to the Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing Bill, but that is not a Bill—it is barely a clause in a Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) said earlier, we had to debate it on the Floor of the House because the Government have not set up the Committee of Selection so that we can have a proper Committee to debate the thing.

I do not doubt that the Government have the power to do these things, but I no longer think they have the authority to do them. Every day they abuse that power, they diminish their own authority; and every day they stretch the gap between their power and their authority, they abandon government by consent and lapse into ideas of dictatorship. That is why the Government are wrong.