Members of Parliament: Risk-based Exclusion

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Well, no. The evidence given to the Standards Committee—if the hon. Member has time to read it, I urge him to do so—was that an awful lot of other workplaces do something similar and start considerably earlier than at charge. For instance, there are proper issues for a school, which is probably the only place where we would properly use the term “safeguarding”, and likewise for a youth service. For someone in the police, it is likely that the police would take far more precautionary action than we do, and far more than is even being suggested here. The bit that is different for us is that the scrutiny on us is acute. However, if we spoke to a teacher excluded from school at the point of arrest for a sexual or violent crime, they would say, “It may not have been on the front page of the Daily Mail, but everybody in my local community knows about it,” so there is enormous reputational risk.

One really important point that we must stress time and again is that, in any of these instances, this cannot involve a judgment as to whether somebody is innocent or guilty—that is absolutely the case—and our processes must guarantee the presumption of innocence all the way through to the end of a criminal justice process.

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend knows that I take a lot of stock from what he says on this subject, so I would be interested to know this. Is he completely content with the proposal before the House, particularly the aspect I found surprising, which is that it allows for the possibility of a Member to be excluded even prior to their arrest, basically on the word of a report from, for example, the Metropolitan police?

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Indeed, trust in the Metropolitan police is not high, and that is a problem for the House at the moment. I am aware of friends and colleagues who would like to make complaints to the police but feel that they would not be listened to properly. Vice versa, there are obviously Members of the House who do not feel that the Metropolitan police would deal with them fairly. I think it is a fair point about whether this should be before arrest, but my assumption has been that the moment of arrest, and certainly if somebody is interviewed under caution while under arrest as a suspect, is the point when, again on a proportionate basis—proportionate to the alleged offence, proportionate to the risk there might be perceived to be and proportionate to the stage at which we are—we may want to take action.

I worry that, if we do not do any of this, we will leave ourselves very exposed to further reputational risk for the House. That is my anxiety. The hon. Member for Bracknell raised the question of whether somebody could be excluded without the House voting on it. My anxiety about the House voting on the exclusion of a Member is that that will almost certainly look to the public as though the House has judged that that person, for want of a better term, is a wrong ’un. That is why if my best friend were in this process—if, for instance, they had been charged, and the House authorities thought there was a significant concern and wanted to take action, suggesting they should not come in—I would say to my best friend, “You should just not come in.” Then it would be entirely voluntary, and that would protect the reputation of the House. I think that would be in the best interests of the individual, and we would end up with a fair outcome for the complainant as well.

However, I think the House has to reserve the opportunity that we may be in a situation where somebody is absolutely adamant—saying, “There’s no way you’re preventing me from coming in”—and people may come to the conclusion of replying, “Sorry, but we think you are a genuine risk to other people on the parliamentary estate, and that now trumps anything else. Consequently, if you’re not prepared to accept this, then we will have to vote on it.” However, I think the likelihood of that happening more than once in decade is minimal. I slightly worry about doing a review, because I am not sure how long we would have to allow before we had enough cases to decide whether the review was actually valuable.

A& E Departments: Staffing

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I should be grateful if Members left quietly, if only because this debate is meant to be about the staffing of accident and emergency departments throughout the whole United Kingdom.

I guess that if general practice is the beating heart of the national health service, A&E departments are the keep-beating heart of the national health service. Everybody in the land has a particular emotional attachment to their local A&E department. Even if they hope that they will never need to go there, many of them will have, from their own family experiences, either a granny, a grampy, an uncle, an aunt or a child who has had to go to A&E and whose life will have been saved. For them, those will be such heightened moments of strong emotion that the local A&E will be vital and essential to them.

Sometimes, in valleys areas in south Wales and in other rural or semi-rural areas of the United Kingdom, A&E departments feel as if they are even more important, because people feel that they need to be close to home and the geography makes it difficult to get to the A&E in the critical hour to get the support, help and medical intervention that will save somebody’s life, so the attachment is felt deeply. There has been a big battle in my local area about the Royal Glamorgan Hospital’s A&E department. I am glad that the Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board has decided to put on hold any decision about the future of that A&E during the coronavirus crisis.

There have recently been significant advances in A&E, and we need to praise those who have made those advances. Major trauma centres, which the Government introduced in England—we are soon to have one in Cardiff—have made a dramatic difference in saving literally hundreds of additional lives every year. We should praise all those who have been involved in those decisions.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate on this very important subject. Does he agree that the staff in A&E departments and across our NHS really should have the protection at work that they deserve? Does he believe that when we look back at the current crisis, one issue that will really come to the fore will be the lack of protective equipment and the lack of testing that has been available up until this point, and I am afraid is still unavailable, for many of our NHS staff?

[Chris Bryant]

Two things are vital in this key moment when the NHS is fearing a tsunami coming down the road, if that is not a mixed metaphor. The first is personal protective equipment. My view is that, frankly, every single fashion brand in this country should be devoting every minute it has to trying to deliver enough PPE for all the doctors in our A&Es. Secondly, we should be straining every sinew to ensure that testing is available for every staff member in our health service, because apart from anything else, it will mean that they can get back to the frontline faster.

Scheduling of Parliamentary Business

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 15th November 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Lady is quite right. Like her, I am much more shovelry than chivalry.

Amendment 2 stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting. As with all the Opposition’s amendments to the Bill, it is a probing amendment. Having closely looked at what was said on Second Reading, Members will realise that we merely seek to scrutinise and stress test the Bill a little. The Bill has completed its stages in the House of Lords, but some outstanding issues remain that we need to explore in Committee, particularly through the amendments that my hon. Friend and I have tabled. An amendment has also been tabled by a Government Back Bencher.

We made it clear on Second Reading that we very much support the Bill, which has been a long time coming. It brings into UK law the 1954 Hague convention, which the UK did not ratify at the time and which has been hanging around waiting for ratification for some considerable time, including after the second protocol was added in 1999. Indeed, it was the Labour Government in 2004 that announced their intention to legislate in this way. They introduced a draft Bill in 2008, which was then scrutinised by a Select Committee but unfortunately ran out of time prior to the 2010 general election and then went into a deep sleep under the coalition Government. It has been revived by this Government, which we think is a good thing, although it is now 62 years since the convention was originally passed.

We are not seeking to challenge the spirit of the convention or the principles of the Bill. In fact, we understand that it is in many ways a different kind of Bill. As the Minister reminded us yesterday in the Programming Sub-Committee, the schedules are in effect there to give the Committee information, rather than to be debated or amended. They actually represent the wording of the convention and the subsequent protocols to it. The first six parts of the Bill are very much for us to debate and amend. As I have said, our amendments will, for the most part, be probing amendments, as this one is. I agree with what the Secretary of State said on Second Reading:

“We want to get on with it”.—[Official Report, 31 October 2016; Vol. 616, c. 700.]

That is why we are here today. I hope that we will be able to conclude our proceedings in the plenty of time given by the programme motion that was agreed by the Government and the Opposition.

We would like the Government to clarify some aspects of the Bill that could create difficulties in future for those who have to interpret and implement it when it becomes law. Amendment 2, which we are considering in conjunction with amendment 6, speaks to one such difficulty. An inevitable consequence of the Bill’s 62-year gestation is that certain aspects of it may well have become outdated. The convention was written in the light of the cultural destruction of the second world war, but quite a lot has happened in the intervening period. The descriptions of the types of cultural property that are in need of protection, which can be found in schedule 1 to the Bill, show their age in the way they refer to physical artefacts and the buildings that house them, with no mention of, for example, those objects that take a digital, rather than physical, form.

The convention, as it is worded, covers cultural property that is “movable or immovable”, but the question that was quite reasonably raised in the other place is whether it covers digital cultural artefacts. For example, would it cover moving images as well as movable or immovable images? I understand that the list in schedule 1 is illustrative and not necessarily exclusive, and that the omission might be seen in some ways as a natural consequence of technological developments rather than any particular negligence at the time, but I still think that it would be useful for the Minister to set out the Government’s position on that.

Having said that it is because of technological developments, it may also reflect a change in mindset since 1954 with regard to what are regarded as cultural objects. It is quite telling that the wording of schedule 1 and the definition of cultural property under article 1 of the convention do not seem to say or to imply that, for example, film would be included as cultural property in that regard. Perhaps people in 1954 did not envisage that film, which was still a relatively new form of artistic expression, albeit more than half a century old, would fall into the category of a cultural object. Lord Stevenson spoke quite eloquently in the other place about the growing and indisputable importance of film, and subsequently television, and the way that they are woven into everyday life, and the way that they reflect, reproduce and challenge the worlds that we inhabit. Therefore, the national film archives in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as regional archives, are all of critical importance.

In fact, a couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to visit the British Film Institute’s archives, which are located near Milton Keynes—if the Minister gets an opportunity in her busy life, I recommend she visits them at some stage—to see the work being done to preserve the cultural heritage of the British film industry. In recent years we had the fantastic discovery of the very early Mitchell and Kenyon films, which catalogue life in the Edwardian era in an incredibly moving and powerful way. They reveal the cultural life of ordinary people in this country, not just so-called high culture, showing how they lived and spent their leisure time and their working lives more than 100 years ago with an amazingly vivid quality. While I was there, I was given a DVD of some of the early colour films of Claude Friese-Greene, who developed an early technique for making colour films but was largely forgotten for many years. There are amazingly vivid images of life in the UK from a tour he took in the 1920s.

To confirm that “cultural property” can be interpreted to include that which takes a digital form would clarify that items do not need to be ancient to be covered by the Bill and by the convention. Our creative industries are thriving, dynamic and constantly changing, producing precious commodities that deserve our protection. I therefore hope that the Minister will assure us that they will be granted the protection outlined in the Bill in the event of armed conflict.

The Minister may argue that the Bill, once passed, will take its place among other UK laws on the protection of cultural property and that we would be better off ensuring that digital culture is covered by those Acts, rather than risk amending the Bill. I understand that argument, which is why I outlined that this is a probing amendment to ensure that we have the Government’s position on the record. However, to ensure that we have informed the future interpretation of the Bill, we want to ensure that UK law is as consistent as possible and that there can be no doubt about the importance of digital cultural property or the severity or importance of anything done to destroy it. I hope that the concerns raised are remembered when we decide which items of cultural property are to be safeguarded by the cultural protection fund.

When this topic was debated in the House of Lords, the Minister, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, said that the wording of schedule 1—in other words, the 1954 convention—was

“flexible enough to meet the concerns expressed about what sort of cultural property might be covered.”

However, earlier in the same speech she responded to Labour’s amendment on the topic by saying

“the noble Lord’s amendment risks allowing the development of an interpretation of the definition in the United Kingdom which is not consistent with its internationally accepted interpretation. That would be undesirable. It would create uncertainty and inconsistency in the application of the convention and its protocols and could result in the UK failing to comply with its obligations under them.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 June 2016; Vol. 773, c. 1478-1479.]

In those two statements there is some possibility of misunderstanding. Is interpreting cultural property so as to include that which takes a digital form a fair interpretation of flexible wording, as the Minister seemed to hint at one point in her remarks? Alternatively, is that interpretation—as expressed in a probing amendment in the House of Lords—a threat to the ratification of the convention? She seems to be suggesting that, and both those things cannot be true. We would be most grateful if the Minister clarified the Government’s exact position on that point. The more strongly she expresses the Government’s view that digital property is covered under the wording of the convention, and therefore by the Bill, the better.

Amendment 6 probes how part 3 of the Bill, which relates to the cultural emblem, fits into the digital age. Hon. Members will have noted that the Bill is unusual in another way, besides the fact that we are not debating the schedules, because it contains a picture. That is unusual in a parliamentary Bill.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Red Cross symbol.

Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 15th November 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Brennan]

I thank the Minister for her response. She will understand that, in tabling probing amendments, we sometimes have to probe from one direction and sometimes from another in order to find out whether the Bill is sound.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

What’s wrong with One Direction?

[Kevin Brennan]

I am certainly not going to be the one to probe.

[Chris Bryant]

Don’t.

[Kevin Brennan]

I will not go any further.

It is not entirely illogical if, as the Minister has said, auctioneers and traders should have a duty to determine provenance. They should have a duty to tell the person to whom they are selling the item what its provenance is, and that is what is envisaged in new clause 3; it would require nothing more than passing on information. I take the point that those matters could be covered in industry codes of practice, but the problem with such codes is that it is usually only the good guys who sign up to them, whatever field we are talking about. The purpose of regulation is to cover everybody, not just members of industry bodies who pay their subscriptions and obey codes of practice that they have signed up to. However, the new clause was a probing amendment and I will therefore not seek to press it.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 18 to 27 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 28

Immunity from seizure or forfeiture

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan]

I am sure that the whole House would welcome any measures that were negotiated internationally to cover these horrific crimes. In speaking for the Opposition, I am sure that we would support the Government should they seek to negotiate further international agreements to that effect.

I am conscious of the fact that the Bill will bring the 1954 convention into UK law, as well as give effect to the 1954 and 1998 protocols. In that sense, it is limited in its scope. It is important to point out on Second Reading that, although we all understand the context in which the issue has become more and more pressing in recent years, particularly in relation to what has been going on in modern Iraq—ancient Mesopotamia—and modern Syria, the Bill cannot deal with the perpetrators of such crimes. We may be able to deal with such crimes in other ways. For example, if UK citizens engaged in this activity went to fight on the side of Daesh in Syria, they might well be caught—I am sure that they would be—by other aspects of UK law, but that does not mean that the penalties available would be the same as those available under the convention in the Bill, including the possibility of a 30-year jail sentence for any breaches.

[Chris Bryant]

We have focused on trying to stop further outrages. Does my hon. Friend agree that the British Museum plays an absolutely vital role—not only in this country, but in modern Iraq and Syria—in trying to protect many Mesopotamian antiquities? Indeed, the British Museum was in closer contact than anybody else with those who were summarily executed.

While we are being nice to Government Members, will my hon. Friend congratulate the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) on the fact that, from the moment he arrived in the House, he has pursued this issue?

[Kevin Brennan]

It would my pleasure to do so, and it is always nice, as well, to hear my hon. Friend being nice to Government Members.

As I have said, the Bill has been introduced in the context of such events, but it is important to note what it will and will not do. It will not necessarily prevent extremists from intimidating people into complying in the way that Mirza was intimidated into doing in Afghanistan. However, we welcome the ratification of the 1954 convention. It is part of an international project to ensure that we are not faced with gaping craters where great statues once stood. When she sums up, will the Minister be absolutely clear about what the Bill does and does not cover, so that there can be no doubt?

My hon. Friend mentioned the British Museum, which is a wonderful institution. If we are candid, however, we should recognise that our own hands are not necessarily entirely historically clean in relation to the removal of cultural property. That occurred in Britain’s colonial history, and it was used to build British wealth and power at the direct expense of colonised nations. Recent speculation concerning the repatriation of the Parthenon marbles to Greece, as well as campaigns to return the Koh-i-noor diamond to India and the Benin bronze cockerel to Nigeria, shows that the removal of cultural property reverberates through the centuries. I notice that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is shaking his head.

[Kevin Brennan]

I will not get into a lengthy debate about the wheres and the what happens.

[Chris Bryant]

You started it.

[Kevin Brennan]

I have spent my whole life starting fights and then running away from them. That is what happens when you are quite small.

Occasionally, when we get on our high horse about these things, we should remember that there have been times during the course of history when we have removed cultural property from others during warfare and, indeed, when we have destroyed cultural property. The convention applies only to events after 1954, so we fortunately do not have to revisit all those times in too much detail; otherwise, before we knew it, we would have SNP Members going on about the Stone of Scone.

Standing Orders (Public Business)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which is that the Mackay commission lays out various different routes that one could go down, but makes it absolutely clear that one of his fundamental principles was that there should not be two tiers of MPs.

[Kevin Brennan]

I asked the Leader of the House earlier on about how a Welsh Conservative MP could be appointed a Minister of the Crown in an area that is not devolved. Does my hon. Friend understand how that could practically be the case under these proposals if that Minister was not permitted to participate in the Committee stage of a Bill under his own jurisdiction?

[Chris Bryant]

If I am honest, the reason I was upset that the Leader of the House did not lay out his plans was that, in the previous debate that we had earlier this year which I did not take part in but which I read, I noticed that he made several mistakes about his own proposals. I do not honestly think that he fully understands them. It is certainly true that people would be able to take part in debates, but they would not then be able to table amendments.

It was a delight to see the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) telling us all how terrible it was that powers had been forced on other people by MPs from different parts of the country. When he was Secretary of State for Wales, despite not representing a Welsh seat, he introduced, much against Welsh views, the shape of local government that we have in England today.

Procedure of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

If the Speaker should have any bias at all, as has been the established practice for more than 150 years, it should be a bias in favour of allowing more debate and continuing discussion and enabling scrutiny. If, therefore, there is a bias at all, it must always be in favour of the Back Bencher, not the Government. For that reason, the Government are always tempted to get rid of a Speaker, but they have never chosen to do so until today. A Speaker should always be able to order proceedings without any fear or favour, in particular without any fear of the Government, the Executive or the Crown.

[Kevin Brennan]

Given that we have a constitutional convention that the Speaker is not opposed by the main parties and that the current Speaker will be standing on that basis, should the Conservative leadership want to get rid of him, should they not be putting up a candidate against him and allowing members of the public, in a secret ballot, to decide who they want to vote for?

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. The Speaker does not stand on a party ticket, so if the good burghers of Buckingham decide that you, Mr Speaker, should be returned as Speaker, and then this House, because of a Conservative plot, decides to get rid of you, what is to become of you? Are you to return to the Back Benches? No Speaker has done that for more than 150 years. Every other candidate presented for Speaker will have stood on a party ticket. It would therefore be a profoundly irresponsible act for us suddenly to change the rules so that we end up with a party candidate rather than a non-party candidate as our next Speaker.

Points of Order

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

rose—

Royal Charter on Press Conduct

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I am afraid that I am going to take the Prime Minister’s side on this. I think that the proposal is well crafted, necessary and sufficient and that more might have been harmful in the way suggested by the hon. Lady. Incidentally, I am not particularly in favour of Popes, so the white smoke analogy is almost irrelevant.

I also commend the leader and deputy leader of my own party, because they have driven resolutely towards a sane and sensible conclusion, which is what we are discussing today.

[Kevin Brennan]

Does my hon. Friend take with a pinch of salt all this stuff about Winston Churchill and a free press? It was Churchill, after all, who published a state-funded newspaper, The British Gazette, to try to suppress the general strike.

[Chris Bryant]

I think I will leave that to one side, but I did object slightly to the front page of The Sun today, because its hyperbole did it no favours. It did not inform the debate and I think it was unwise.

My interest in this issue started before I was elected as an MP, when the two girls were murdered in Soham. A friend of mine, Tim Alban Jones, was the vicar of Soham and I remember clearly that every door in that village was knocked, not just once but many times, because members of the press—and, sometimes, television and radio crews—were desperate to find some new angle to the story in order to sell their newspapers. Frankly, that community was in complete and utter shock. The press was not doing anything illegal, but it was unethical and immoral and it bullied and hounded the local community, which was deeply distressing, particularly to the families who had lost loved ones.

It took the vicar to stand up for the community and say, “Listen folks: will you please just leave this community alone?” The Press Complaints Commission in that instance was completely and utterly useless. I think the Prime Minister once referred to the PCC as a busted flush and that is exactly what it has proved to be.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

It was a very good intervention, though, Mr Bone. I think you are being a bit mean this afternoon.

The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is absolutely right. That is the problem with the clause. I want the clause to go through, but I think it will provide us with long-term problems because it will change the point at which we consider someone to have become reconciled to, or to be in communion with, the Catholic Church. A Catholic can be in communion with the Church of England, as the hon. Member for Aldershot said, because we accept anyone who is in good standing with their own Church into communion with the Church of England. The same does not apply the other way round, however. This is where the issue of bringing up children comes in.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Those of us who are brought up as Catholics are also often confirmed in the Catholic faith at quite a young age. What is my hon. Friend’s understanding of the point at which a child’s Catholicism would become a problem? Could that problem be overcome simply by taking the oath of accession?

[Chris Bryant]

That is really a question for the Minister. There is a real question about pulling at one thread in the jumper. Are we undermining other aspects of the present settlement, and will we therefore need a whole new settlement? That is what I think will need to happen in the next 10 to 15 years. Charles II changed his religion on his deathbed; he became a Catholic. If he had then lived, people might have wanted to exclude him from the throne, just as they went on to remove James II.

Personal, Social, Health and Financial Education

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) on securing this important debate. She told us about teenage pregnancy in Salford and reminded us that a move to make PSHE statutory before the last election was blocked by the Conservative party during the wash-up. That was a shame. Perhaps Back-Bench Members from whom we have heard today could exert some pressure to reverse that position.

The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) said that there were not many positive images of long-term relationships on television. I used to be a fan of “Coronation Street” and always thought that Jack and Vera Duckworth or Hilda and Stan Ogden were wonderful role models. I do not have enough time to watch any soap operas these days, so I am not sure what is going on. I think it has got much more sensationalist since my day.

[Chris Bryant]

They are all dead now.

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes, I had heard. But those were long-term successful relationships.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) highlighted the Government’s lack of activity and, in doing so, highlighted the great deal of activity that she has put into this subject. I will say more about that later.

The hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd)—the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, no less—spoke with great passion and conviction, as always, on this subject. I congratulate her on the cross-party work that she has done on this subject, which she has got across recently in the media. She said that teenage pregnancy under 16 was low. I know, from the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South in Salford, that figures for teenagers above 16 range from a low of 216 to 250, whereas for the under-16s it ranges from 37 to 51. It can be as high as 20% in some areas. Although I take the hon. Lady’s point, I would not describe it as very low: 20% is a worryingly high proportion.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke with conviction, although perhaps his view is not shared by the majority of hon. Members present. Age-appropriateness is the issue here. I think all of us can agree that sex and relationships education should be delivered in that way. I appeal to him for clear evidence and actual, practical examples of where he thinks abuse of this provision is taking place, because it is important that this debate happens in the light of evidence.

In the 1980s, ill-conceived media coverage and ill-conceived views expressed about what was being taught to children led to section 28. I was a teacher at that time and a colleague, who was a gay man, had to keep his sexuality hidden because of the consequences of section 28, which was based on unsubstantiated rumours that what was being taught in our schools was promoting homosexuality.

Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I am afraid that the issue is the way in which the back channel was organised through the Secretary of State’s special adviser, Adam Smith, of whom the right hon. Gentleman has said there has never been a closer working relationship between a Minister and a special adviser—and we are meant to believe that the information this person was providing to Sky was not material—and the process whereby all the e-mails that were provided made it absolutely clear what was in the Secretary of State’s mind and how he was trying to secure that outcome.

That brings me to the central charges: first, that the Secretary of State deliberately misled Parliament. He told Parliament in March 2011 that he had published

“all the documents relating to all the meetings—all the consultation documents, all the submissions we received, all the exchanges between my Department and News Corporation.”—[Official Report, 3 March 2011; Vol. 524, c. 526.]

That was a very, very emphatic statement, which clearly had not been verified, because then, on 7 September, he tried to backtrack a bit—or cover his tracks. In a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), the Secretary of State said:

“A search for correspondence from officials, press officers and special advisers to and from all the individuals listed would incur disproportionate cost to collect.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2011; Vol. 532, c. 616.]

He did not choose to correct the previous statement. He chose not to reveal that he had texted James Murdoch himself and had sent a memo to the Prime Minister. Far from exonerating the Secretary of State, the answer he provided on 7 September proves beyond doubt that he deliberately failed to tell the whole truth to this House. It was only the legal powers vested in Leveson that forced the truth out into the open.

[Kevin Brennan]

On that point, is it not a further requirement of the ministerial code that the Secretary of State should be as open as possible with Parliament? His conduct in this matter, and in the instance that my hon. Friend has mentioned, is clearly an example of his not being as open as possible with Parliament.

[Chris Bryant]

This House has regularly excoriated Ministers when they have resorted too swiftly to the argument that it is too expensive to provide the full information, but to be honest, I cannot see how it could have been too expensive to have found the memo that the Secretary of State wrote to the Prime Minister—or, for that matter, the text messages that the Secretary of State sent to the people concerned.

There are some other facts to be dealt with. The deliberate nature of the misinformation is also evidenced by the Secretary of State’s response, following his statement in April this year, to questions from two Back Benchers—both doubtless inspired directly by the Whips, as was the question posed earlier by the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns). When one Back Bencher—helped, I am sure—asked him how many conversations he had had, meaning how many with News International and News Corporation, the Secretary of State said, quite categorically and emphatically, “zero”. When another Back Bencher—a Conservative Member; this did not come out of the blue—asked whether the Secretary of State recognised the conversations attributed to him by Fred Michel, he said:

“I do not. Throughout the bid process, when I got responsibility for it, the contact that I had with Fred Michel was only at official meetings that were minuted with other people present. The fact is that there is a whole pile of e-mails—54 in total—in which he talks about having contact with me, but that simply did not happen.”—[Official Report, 25 April 2012; Vol. 961, c. 543.]

Neither response was unpremeditated; they were deliberately placed on the record. Both are deliberate obfuscations and lies.

Privilege

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, too, pay warm tribute to the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), because this task has been particularly difficult, not least because it has followed on from previous inquiries, not only while he has been Chairman, but carried out when my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) chaired the Committee.

This is a debate about privilege, and I always think that the word “privilege” is an unfortunate one to use in relation to Parliament, as I am sure would most voters. The truth is that we have not yet seen all the evidence. It is important to note that, precisely for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman has adduced that nobody has wanted to trample on the toes of a criminal investigation, we are so far—this is true of Leveson as well—seeing only the tip of a very large iceberg. The issues that have been presented to us in the report refer to just three people, but more than 40 have been arrested and there may be further arrests yet.

When the whole story has come out, as I hope it will eventually, I think this instance will prove to have been one of the most flagrant examples of contempt of Parliament in Parliament’s history. It was not just one person at one time or one organisation for a brief period of time; a series of people systematically and repeatedly lied so as to protect themselves, to protect their commercial interests and to try to make sure that they did not end up going to prison. They did that knowing fully that they were telling lies to Parliament, and I believe that that is a fundamental contempt. If we look through the history of Parliament, it is difficult to find a moment when there was such a concatenation of deliberate abuses—contempt of Parliament. That is why we need to take this moment very seriously.

There was covert surveillance of Members of Parliament, deliberately to intimidate them in going about their duties. That applied particularly to members of the Committee. As we know, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) had his phone hacked, as quite possibly did some four score others. Indeed, News International managed to turn the Metropolitan police into a partially owned subsidiary, whereby members of staff from one organisation were going to work for another and then coming back. [Interruption.] I note that some of my hon. Friends suggest that the subsidiary was not partially owned.

The important thing for us to decide is what we do about this. I think that everybody is agreed that something egregious and terrible has happened. The question is what we do now. The Government have published a White Paper on parliamentary privilege, and it seemed to me that the Leader of the House was trying to suggest to the Committee on Standards and Privileges that it should be very wary of using penal powers or recommending that penal powers should be used. The Scottish Parliament, however, has precise powers under section 25—I think—of the Scotland Act 1998: where people refuse to give evidence to a Committee of the Parliament or to the Parliament or where they lie to Parliament, they are liable to imprisonment for up to three months. That provision is not written into statute for us, but we should certainly consider it.

Perjury before a court attracts a maximum sentence of up to seven years’ imprisonment, and even perjury by making a false declaration in a statutory declaration is liable to a sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment. The factors considered when sentencing would be whether the lie was said just once, whether it was inadvertent or deliberate, the impact that the lie caused, whether there was more than one lie, and on how many occasions the lie was perpetuated.

[Kevin Brennan]

Further to my earlier intervention, does my hon. Friend remember the point of order I raised on this matter on 14 July 2011, when Mr Deputy Speaker confirmed that under the Parliamentary Witnesses Oaths Act 1871 and the Perjury Act 1911, Select Committees can require witnesses to give evidence under oath and make them subject to criminal charges of perjury if they are subsequently proved to have lied?

[Chris Bryant]

I do remember that point of order, which is why when my hon. Friend intervened on the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), I knew what he was going to ask her. It is a point that he rightly makes and has made repeatedly.

We are congratulating ourselves today on the Select Committee process bringing us to this point, but if the Select Committee process had worked better, we might have reached this point three years ago. The Select Committee might have been able to require Rebekah Brooks to give evidence in 2009 and it might have been taking evidence under oath from the very beginning. Then we would not have to decide what we should do about these people, as the courts would be doing so. If we were to apply all those elements of how to decide a sentence for perjury before a court to this case, I would have thought one of the lengthier sentences would be handed down. The same is true for contempt of court, which carries a sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment.

Statements of Taxation

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

I rise to oppose the Bill proposed by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer). He is a very charming Member of the House who has obviously made quite an impact since he arrived—although not quite so charming as to win last week’s debate in the Cambridge Union on whether the Tories have been unfairly demonised.

None the less, I say to the hon. Gentleman that there are far more important things that we should change about how expenditure is revealed to taxpayers, not least because we in this House do an extremely bad job of analysing expenditure. The Budget that we have every year is not really a budget, it is just a statement of changes to taxation. It is not a proper process whereby we start from scratch and examine every single piece of expenditure, which is what happens in every local authority in the land and in the United States of America, where there is a thorough budget process. I do not believe that there has been a vote on expenditure in this House since something like 1918. All that we do is work on the estimates, and nobody ever makes a close analysis of expenditure.

Although I am sympathetic to some of what the hon. Gentleman says about how we should explain things better to taxpayers, I believe that there are better ways to ensure that the expenditure that the House grants on behalf of the Crown is better explained to them.

My real complaint about the hon. Gentleman’s motion —it is the motion that we are debating today, not the Bill—is that it requests that

“leave be given to bring in a Bill”.

There are still 93 Bills on the Order Paper to be debated before Prorogation, and not a single one of those is scheduled for a day when the House will be sitting. Nor will his Bill be.

I simply say to hon. Members that there is a hypocrisy about how we do our legislating here. I am not saying that any individual Member is a hypocrite, simply that there is a hypocrisy about our pretending that we are actually advancing legislation. If Members want to wave the motion through, that is fine, but they need to be absolutely clear about the fact that if they had any real honesty in what they were doing, they would be calling on the Leader of the House to provide extra time to debate such Bills. Otherwise, this is nothing more than a political puff and a press release for the Daily Mail.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

BSkyB

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Thursday 30th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

How on earth did we—and I mean all of us, not just the Minister—become so spineless as to allow a company whose directors not only failed in their fiduciary duties to prevent criminality at the News of the World, but actually participated in its cover-up, to hold dominion over such a vast swathe of the media in this country? No other country in the world would allow somebody to have so much power.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Apart from Italy.

[Chris Bryant]

Apart, perhaps, from Italy. Why on earth do we allow it?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I knew the hon. Gentleman was going to make a silly point, because he made the same silly point earlier. We have to have elections to this House, and they will either be under the first-past-the-post system or, if the referendum question is carried, under AV. I therefore do not accept his argument. I also point out to him that I believe there will be very different turnouts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from that in England. That is why I have never supported holding the referendum on the same day as other elections there.

[Kevin Brennan]

To return to the amendment in lieu that the Minister has proposed, does my hon. Friend agree that it effectively constitutes a direct insult to the other House, first because of its puerile nature and the fact that it is totally unrelated to the amendments from the other place, and secondly because of the Minister’s cursory explanation of it, which gave the game away?

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is, as always, spot on, and I will come to the Government amendment in lieu after I have made one significant point. Implementing referendums is fundamentally dangerous. All too often in other democracies, such referendums have been a way of circumventing the process of parliamentary democracy. That is a particularly dangerous way of doing business under coalition Governments. I do not believe that implementing referendums is a good idea, except for when there is a settled constitutional view that has been established on the basis of consensus, which is certainly not the situation with the AV referendum.

Everybody has a threshold in their own mind, but the truth is that the Government are proceeding as they are because they know perfectly well that if they were to introduce a stand-alone Bill to introduce the alternative vote, it would not be carried in the House or in the House of Lords. That is the profound danger with the way in which the Government are trying to proceed.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend, and near neighbour, is absolutely right about that. Interestingly, the Scottish Executive have made direct representations to the Secretary of State for Scotland about the statutory instruments, as has the convener of the Local Government and Communities Committee in the Scottish Parliament. So it was a bit disappointing to see the reply from the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland , which said:

“I would however like to personally reassure you that Scotland Office officials are working closely with the Cabinet Office; the Electoral Commission; the Interim Electoral Management Board for Scotland; and electoral administrators to ensure that both the referendum and the Scottish Parliament election will run smoothly on 5 May next year.”

I do not think that that represents the respect agenda originally referred to by the Prime Minister, and it does not really represent new politics either. I fully understand that the hon. Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) and for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) complained bitterly about the way in which we introduced legislation, but introducing it in a way that does not allow amendments to be properly considered in a timely fashion or in the proper order is a ludicrous way of doing business.

[Kevin Brennan]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will give way, but I am keen to move on.

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend knows it is unwise not to give way to me, because it might end up in a point of order. I have described this Bill as a Wallace and Gromit Bill because of the way in which, rather like Gromit in “The Wrong Trousers”, the Government are laying down the track as they go along. Indeed it is worse than that, because this group of amendments is consequential on a set of statutory instruments that this House has not yet even considered. If that is not getting things back to front, I do not know what is.

[Chris Bryant]

I do recall my hon. Friend raising the matter of “The Wrong Trousers” and Wallace and Gromit, but I think his metaphor does not work in this case. Gromit was laying down pieces of track ahead of him, whereas the Government are laying down pieces of track behind them—pieces of track that they have not been over; this is putting the horse before the cart before the horse before the cart. There is a real problem in the process that the Government have adopted, and I very much hope that their lordships will want to examine it carefully.

What is also wrong is that because the Government have tabled 28 pages of amendments that we have to debate on Report, they have had to set aside a chunk of time for us to do so. That has been done not because the House wanted it, or to bring about greater consensus on the Bill, but to meet the Government’s own business needs, and as a result of their own haste. The fact that we have not had a single moment’s debate about the decoupling of seats in the Welsh Assembly and their coterminosity with Westminster seats is a disgrace. If, as we had requested, a knife had not been put in yesterday night’s proceedings, it would have been possible for us to have debated that matter now, rather than the measures that we have to debate at this point.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

So far this evening, the Government have gained no supporters for their argument. I think that there is a good reason for that. The arguments presented by Members on both sides of the House—including the persuasive argument of the former leader of the Liberal Democrat party, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy)—can be summed up very simply as “This House does not believe in the Government’s construction of a mathematical exercise in order to create constituencies”. Everyone who has articulated an argument this evening has expressed the belief that, in the case of Cornwall, Scotland, the south Wales valleys or the whole of Wales, we need to ensure that minority voices are heard loud and clear in the House.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will not, if my hon. Friend does not mind. I know that the Minister needs to be able to reply.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. When you called the Front-Bench spokesmen, at least a dozen Labour Members were still waiting to speak. It is clear that not enough time has been allowed for the debate. Can anything be done to enable those Members to put their points on the record?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is not a point of order. The point about the amount of time allowed for the debate has been taken on board, but that is a decision for the Government rather than the Chair.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Well, the hon. Gentleman did not make that point earlier, but if he now agrees with the Government that must be because a Whip has spoken to him—or somehow or other. Anyway, he agrees with the Government, and I am sure that the Minister will be absolutely delighted about that.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Damascus.

[Chris Bryant]

As my hon. Friend says, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) has obviously become the hon. Member for Damascus. There are quite a lot of them in the Liberal Democrat party as well, so I am sure he and his friends will feel very much at home.

We have also tabled some consequential amendments, such as amendment (h), and that brings us to amendment (i) to new schedule 2, which is entitled, “Combination of Polls: England”. The amendment relates to who is able to attend the count. I accept that I have not consulted widely with returning officers on this matter, because my experience is that different returning officers—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) mouths at me, “What page?” Amendment (i) is on page 790 of the amendment paper, and it reads:

“Paragraph 40, at the end of sub-paragraph (3) insert ‘or

(c) the person is a Member of Parliament.’.”

The amendment would merely allow Members, as of right, to attend the count on the AV referendum. We have not been able to word the amendment, “the person is the Member of Parliament for that constituency”, because thus far we have not won the argument with the Minister about making the count happen at a Westminster parliamentary constituency level, but the amendment would allow Members to attend the count.