Voting by Prisoners

Debate between Chris Bryant and Richard Shepherd

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Shepherd]

The hon. Gentleman speaks of Maxwell Fyfe, but it was, of course, a Labour Government who signed up to the convention. The hon. Gentleman will recall from his researches that Lord Jowett and the Cabinet had the greatest difficulty in reconciling that with the establishment of a court that would be outside the jurisdiction of this country. That is the issue that haunts what we are discussing today: that a court elsewhere reaches beyond our own competence.

[Chris Bryant]

People have claimed that either a Labour or a Conservative Government signed up to the convention, but in fact there was a cross-party agreement that we should move in that direction, just as we agreed on how we should prosecute throughout the Nuremberg trials. Hartley Shawcross was Attorney-General, but he none the less allowed Maxwell Fyfe to conduct the vast majority of the interrogation. Similarly, our approach to human rights was shared by both the main political parties throughout the period following the second world war.

[Mr Shepherd]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I understand the other point that the hon. Gentleman made, and I hope to deal with it shortly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is right that it happened under a Labour Government, but it happened with the full support of the Conservative Opposition. Indeed, that is why the Labour Government supported David Maxwell Fyfe’s appointment to the chairmanship of the key committee—the legal committee—in the Council of Europe that drafted the original version of the convention. That happened while there was still a Labour Government.

[Mr Shepherd]

The hon. Gentleman should also remember that Lord Jowett and the Labour Cabinet were greatly anxious about another court in the English legal system. The convention was therefore very tightly drawn.

European Union Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Richard Shepherd

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I do not think you are able to call one, Mr Evans.

The hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) seems to be arguing that we should adopt a French style of intransigence, permanently trying solely to defend the British interest. In the end, such an approach cuts off our nose to spite our face. I do not think that anybody here thinks that the double-sitting arrangement is sensible, and most French politicians would agree in private. If this country starts setting up barriers to try to make it more difficult to change anything in the European Union, other countries will do the same and we will end up keeping some of the anomalies and ludicrous elements of the European Union. That is why I oppose the clause. I would have dealt with all that in a short intervention on the Minister.

[Mr Shepherd]

I do not understand this. The hon. Gentleman says, “It is in the treaty” but this Bill has nothing to do with changing the treaty and is about circumstances that may arise in the future. So what point is he making? If the treaty provides for movement between the two centres on a rotating basis, it is mandatory, is it not? How does this relate to the Bill?

[Chris Bryant]

The Bill does make reference to treaty change, and understandably so. I thought that the whole argument that the hon. Gentleman and many others have made over the past three or four years during discussion of the Lisbon treaty and its predecessor was that because a treaty change was involved, there should be a referendum. All I am saying is that if that had been the proposition in France, we would never see an end to that element of treaty change. I would, however, be amazed if the Government make any progress on trying to change the Strasbourg provisions, although perhaps the Minister will be able to enlighten us on that.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Richard Shepherd

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I support the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), but I shall talk about the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) invoked Homer. In the case of my hon. Friend’s new clause, I would invoke Cicero:

“Those who know nothing of the time before they were born shall forever remain children.”

That is what I feel is happening to this Chamber. We forget our past, our history and the continuity of our constitution. There was an affirmation there that was important and required addressing.

I understand the hon. Member for Rhondda being concerned about the increased politicisation of the House of Lords, and the “gridlock”, or however he described it. I grew up in an age when the Standing Orders of the House of Lords—this was before my time in the House of Commons—were not so dissimilar from the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. They dealt with, among other things, delay. Very important it is, too. If there is such a thing as gridlock, there comes a point, as we sometimes see in the United States, when the people whom we are elected to represent grow increasingly angered that the business of government comes to a halt because horns are locked. That becomes the grounds for compromise and discussion as the route forward.

As I understand it, in the Lords a proposition has been offered to the Government to separate the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill into two parts, with one part going forward. So there were grounds for compromise. At the moment that is not acceptable to the Government and there is therefore gridlock, but there will come a time when that is unacceptable to a wider public, who want Parliament and the Government to move on.

[Chris Bryant]

I hoped that my words supported the very argument that the hon. Gentleman is making. I would, in addition, invoke Cato the Younger, who by speaking until dusk, made sure that Caesar did not always get his way. [Interruption.] The Deputy Leader of the House says that that was a filibuster. Cato was right to use every tactic that he had, but the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) is right, too. The Standing Orders of the House of Lords were the same as they were in this place. The fact that now the Government always have precedence over the order and the timing of debates is one of the reasons why there is no check on the Executive at all.

[Mr Shepherd]

I am always encouraged when a political opponent, in the sense of someone from the other side of the House, adopts arguments that I advanced against him when he was sitting on the Front Bench on behalf of the Labour party. It is true. Now we see the conversion of the defeated. That is why we should always be mindful that our hold on government is a temporary experience, and that one day we will be sitting on the Benches on the other side of the Chamber and hoping to be able to make the reasoned arguments that can convince a wider public out there.

The sheer disengagement of some of our arguments from those by whom we are elected, and from why we are elected, is to me the most worrying development of Parliament in recent years. We have scorned the historic balance of where the people lie in this matter; that is why I support both new clauses. I have asked the whole way through our consideration of the Bill how it will strengthen the people’s hold over the House of Commons, which is their representative instrument for ensuring that public policy bears some relationship to the desires, hopes and aspirations of our society. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset for the informed, reasoned and reasonable way in which he presented his new clause. If it is put to a vote, I will vote for it, because I would like to show that there is some support in this House for the arguments it advances about temperance in respect of the House of Lords and its doings.

I am a democrat and truly believe in the representation of the people in this House, which is what I want to see. However, the basis of the argument that I have made the whole way through proceedings on the Bill is that we know that it is about the entrenchment of a temporary coalition, and we are trying to examine, and amend, the aspiration that things can somehow be rejigged. We have heard the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is sitting on the Front Bench, advance the startling proposition that the Queen could dismiss a Prime Minister for acting “improperly”. No constitutional documents in the past two centuries, and certainly not since 1867, have stated that that was a practical reality.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Richard Shepherd

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Shepherd]

I am a little puzzled as to why the hon. Gentleman comes to the conclusion that this needs to be codified in any way. Our history demonstrates quite openly that this House comes to such a resolution by the processes of the House. When Mr Chamberlain won the famous Norway debate, he recognised that there was no confidence in him personally. These matters are eventually decided by the House and by the judgment of individuals. Surely that is the better way of doing it.

[Chris Bryant]

In a sense, that is an argument against the whole Bill which I understand. I know that the hon. Gentleman is not saying that this is a conspiracy, but I think that the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex feels that a bit of a cosy consensus has developed around the fact that there should be a codification of fixed-term Parliaments. We agree with that codification. However, once one starts to codify one element, one has to codify rather a lot of them. That is why I have wanted to codify what counts as a motion of no confidence and what should be a motion of confidence. Perhaps we should have tried to codify it in a slightly different way so that, for instance, a motion to amend the Loyal Address could also be considered as such, as in 1924.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Richard Shepherd

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Shepherd]

I am getting increasingly impatient in one sense, but on the distinction between what is a confidence motion and what is not, I put this proposition to the Committee. If the Government lose the Budget, that is it. My understanding of our constitution is that that would be the end of the Government.

[Chris Bryant]

indicated dissent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Shepherd]

Might that lack of clarity be a mark of the wisdom of past generations? They knew when it had happened that a Government were not sustainable, and they knew when it had not happened. The mood of the House in relation to that of the country was an open question.

[Chris Bryant]

I am not sure that that is true. It depended on the Crown—that is, the Government or Executive—retaining the power to dissolve Parliament. I do not think that a measure that was considered to be a motion of no confidence in 1866—namely,

“to leave out the words ‘clear yearly’ and put ‘rateable’ instead thereof”—

would be considered to be one today, and I therefore think that it would be inappropriate for that power to remain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Or she. I thought I just heard my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) speaking in my ear.

If that Prime Minister felt that it was essential in the interests of the nation that there should be an early general election, the Government would be prepared to bypass and use every trick in the book to secure an early election. They might well have this Bill in their back pocket as a means of achieving that. So although this Government were supposedly trying to release the grip of the Executive, they would have enhanced it.

I want to reaffirm our commitment to fixed-term Parliaments. That means that we have to lay down in statute that it is for the House, not the Prime Minister, to dissolve Parliament. It should also be for the House to decide the precise date of the general election, which should be in statute, and we should have only one process of calling an early general election. We must be clear that the Government need always retain the confidence of the House of Commons and that should be written in statute now.

For most of the 20th century, we have had very few hung Parliaments, but I suspect that there might well be more in future. We need to ensure that our provisions will stand the test of time rather than simply being drawn up to appease the coalition agreement.

[Mr Shepherd]

Mr Hoyle, I have a point of inquiry following your response to the Opposition’s Front-Bench spokesman, which is about the stand part debate. As the amendments are theories in concatenation, it is difficult to address an amendment in isolation without reference to a wider context.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Richard Shepherd

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Shepherd]

I have lost my place as a result of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, so let me recap what Professor Blackburn said:

“It was the period expressly approved of as being normal in practice, when the Parliament Act set the period of five years as a maximum. In an ideal democracy it may be that there should be elections as frequently as possible—even annually as supported by the Chartists in the eighteenth century—but a government must be allowed a sufficient period of time in which to put its programme of public policies into effect before submitting its record of achievement, or otherwise, to the voters. Three full legislative sessions, and certainly four, is sufficient for this purpose.”

I believe that that is correct.

[Chris Bryant]

I agree with the point made in that quotation; indeed, I was going to refer to that passage in my speech. For the sake of accuracy, however, I should point out that the Chartists were really in the 19th century, not the 18th. I hope that that does not invalidate the historical record.

[Mr Shepherd]

What a trivial point, but I thought I had said the 19th century. I stand corrected if I did not, and I am sorry if I misinformed the Committee. [Interruption.] No, I do not think I was quoting at that point. [Interruption.] I said the 19th century, I think. I am well aware of that fact; it was part of my own training.

The central issue, however, is the legitimacy of Governments and the determination of what is the right period for enabling the people to have a view, and control, over the Crown as represented by the Government in this place.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Richard Shepherd

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The difficulty about thresholds in the Labour movement is that, for instance, I suppose one could have said that there should be a threshold for the election of candidates for the Labour party—or, for that matter, for the leader of the Labour party. I think that that would be inappropriate. When we have an election, we in the Labour movement have always proceeded on the basis of alternative vote—[Interruption.] To be fair, in the past, for a brief period, we used a single vote but then there was a run-off that was used for several years. For several years now—for several decades, in fact—we have used the alternative vote to select candidates when there is a single member standing. When there are multiple members, we use first past the post. The point that I want to make is that I do not think that it is appropriate to bring in a threshold at this time, but I fully understand that there are others who say that because of the way in which the Government are pushing forward with this legislation and because it is an implementing referendum, a threshold would be appropriate.

I think I can see the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) cogitating, so I shall give way to him.

[Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I was not cogitating—I was bemused by the rationality of the hon. Gentleman’s argument. If I understood it correctly, he was saying that there was a level of turnout that would not authorise, essentially, so dramatic a change in the public mind. If it does not have the authority of a certain percentage enabling us to claim that it was the will of the people, at what level does he think that should be set? There must surely be a level for such a profound constitutional change to be authorised, as was suggested with reference to the union movement, for instance.

[Chris Bryant]

To be honest, I would prefer us to have a written constitution in which all those elements were laid out, but that is not what is before us tonight. One could go around this Chamber and see on what proportion of the vote of the total electorate any one of us was elected—after all, the proposition in amendment 197 is that one would have to be elected by a proportion of the electorate. I think that that would be inappropriate. We have a system in this country where someone either wins or loses the vote. There would be a strong point in arguing that this should not be an implementing referendum, but merely an advisory referendum. The House would therefore be able to take a decision on the basis of what turnout there had or had not been. I would hate to see the campaign simply to boycott the referendum that would almost certainly arise from those who are opposed to a change.