Information for Backbenchers on Statements

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) for making his maiden speech in what is, in many ways, an appropriate debate in which to get one’s spurs. I congratulate him and say well done on that. I particularly enjoyed his tribute to his immediate predecessor; I think that the whole House enjoyed those comments. I was also struck by his reference to Clement Davies, because of a perhaps little-known historical fact. He was leader of the Liberal party at the only time in history when two different party leaders with the same name have fought a general election—I am referring to the great Clement Attlee and Clement Davies. Support for the Liberal party was perhaps somewhat less then than it is today, but perhaps at the next general election its support will return to its rightful place, where it was in 1945.

This is an important debate, and a number of hon. Members from across the Chamber have said that a real problem needs to be addressed. I am a new Member—only elected in May this year—but I have been struck by the number of occasions on which Ministers have been admonished by you, Mr Speaker, and by Opposition Members for repeatedly giving statements to the media and then coming to the House. They have had to apologise for that on at least one occasion. I know that the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire said that that is a particularly strong censure for Ministers and something that he would not wish to put himself through, but it seems as though the current crop of Ministers are not as concerned by the course of action that they might need to take to right the situation. There has seemingly been a willingness to continue merrily along and to give statements to the media despite what has been made very clear by Mr Speaker and by criticisms from the Opposition.

I hope that following tonight’s debate, Ministers will take the issue more seriously than they have so far. As a new Back-Bench Member, I believe that the sanctity of Parliament should be paramount and that Ministers should come here before they make statements elsewhere. It undermines my role, in many ways, if I am contacted by the media on issues such as Building Schools for the Future when we have had five different versions of the list of schools that will be affected around the country. I understand that the latest list is inaccurate, too. The way in which that whole issue has been handled leaves a lot to be desired and many hares have been set running. In my constituency, people’s hopes have been raised and dashed and raised and dashed and that is not a professional way of going on. Something needs to be done about that.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Secretary of State came to the House and apologised on that matter, which does not seem particularly relevant to our debate? It was rare for shadow Ministers, when they were in government, to come and apologise and I think that we should accept that that was a genuine apology which was received very well in this House.

[Chris Williamson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I freely acknowledge that the Secretary of State came and apologised, but that brings me back to my point. Is an apology or the need to make an apology a sufficient deterrent? Surely what we want on both sides of the House is to ensure that there is no need for Ministers to come and apologise. As the Secretary of State has been so willing to make an apology on five separate occasions, that undermines the value of that censure on a Minister. If we go back 20 or 30 years, perhaps an apology from the Minister might have been a more significant deterrent than it seems to be today. We need to find an alternative mechanism to ensure that these sorts of concerns and problems do not arise in the future.

I come from a local government background and there is a long-standing tradition about such issues in local government. As a former leader of Derby city council, I know that my most significant announcement as leader would be about the budget and the setting of the council tax, and it would be routine for us to embargo the statement that I was going to make to the council chamber. Perhaps that is something that we ought to adopt in this House: Ministers’ statements could be embargoed and that embargo could have some legal force. Perhaps that would be a way of ensuring that the House is treated with the gravitas that, in my view, it deserves.

[Mark Durkan]

Does that not raise the point that if we took up the Leader of the House’s idea of having clearer advance notice of oral statements, the protocol should be that as soon as notice of a statement were given, an embargo would kick in? We would probably then need to change the civil service code as well to prevent leaks and briefings taking place at civil service level rather than from Ministers or Members of the House.

[Chris Williamson]

My hon. Friend makes a particularly cogent point. That would certainly be a valuable way forward.

I know that all new Governments have a political agenda and want to get their legislation on to the statute book, but I have been struck by the breakneck speed at which the new Administration are seemingly determined to railroad legislation through the House. Perhaps that is one reason why there have been so many leaks to the media. The House is not being given sufficient time to scrutinise legislation. This is a cross-party point; I have heard hon. Members on the Government Benches express similar concerns. The Academies Bill is a case in point: there are significant reservations on the Opposition side, but there are also reservations on the Government side and it is regrettable that measures are being railroaded through by the new Administration despite those concerns.

A cross-party consensus on finding a better way forward seems to have emerged. How long has this Parliament been sitting now? I have been elected for about 10 weeks and I do not know how many times you have been called on, Mr Speaker, through various points of order, to admonish Ministers for making statements before coming to the House. That simply cannot go on; it just is not good enough. We have to find a better way of doing business in the Chamber. I hope that we can find cross-party consensus on that, and I hope that Ministers will take this issue more seriously than they have hitherto. I hope also that they will take the possibilities on board, particularly given the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) about giving embargoes legal force and changing the civil service code.

[John Hemming]

I understand that Select Committees frequently issue their reports under embargoes and obviously it is a contempt of Parliament to publish them prior to the embargo. How does the hon. Gentleman think the Opposition would perceive a situation in which the Government issued something under embargo, thereby constraining them from commenting on it?

[Chris Williamson]

Clearly, Opposition Members would have to pay cognisance to that. If we were to adopt the embargo approach, there would need to be discipline on both sides of the House. If we are to acknowledge that Parliament is paramount and that we should get statements before they go to the media, a degree of discipline would be required on both sides. I believe that there is a way forward.

[John Hemming]

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the embargo would rest merely within Parliament, which is, in a sense, what currently happens with statements, or that documents could be issued to the media with an embargo on them?

[Chris Williamson]

Such details would need to be worked out. That might be a way forward, but could we trust the media with an embargo? I am not sure. We would need to consider the issues, work out the detail and find an appropriate way forward by which Parliament would not feel that it was being held in contempt on occasion by the way in which Ministers conduct themselves. As I have said, the strong cross-party consensus on this matter means that the will is definitely there. I simply hope that Ministers will take our concerns on board and that the House can find a better way of doing business so that we do not have the problems that we have seen far too much of in the short time that I have been a Member of the House.