Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Friday 11th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman is making extremely important points about how legislation currently before the House can mix up different issues and have different impacts on different parts of the United Kingdom. My Bill would make things clearer, with the result that parliamentary draftsmen would automatically start to make it clearer and much more distinct which parts of the United Kingdom Bills apply to. In addition, the Bill would allow legislation to continue to apply to different parts of the United Kingdom—all it says is, “Let’s state that on the face of the Bill.” Why should we not do that?

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this Bill. She describes the issue as complex. Does she understand why it is so complex that the Government have not even been able to set up a commission to look into it? Surely, that should not be beyond the capability of the Deputy Prime Minister. Has she been able to find out why that has not been done?

[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend asks a somewhat cheeky question. I am sympathetic to the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper)—a constituency neighbour of mine—has had a rather busy last couple of weeks. I am giving him a little slack because of that, but I agree that it is important to keep pressing for the establishment of the commission.

The legislation on tuition fees will affect university students from England. It will create the awkward situation of Welsh and English students paying different fees to attend the same university. The Scotland Bill, which I mentioned earlier, will enhance the powers of the Scottish Executive in many instances, including their ability to vary tax rates. Therefore, Parliament and this truly reforming Government need to find a way to scrutinise legislation in such a way that Members, who have the best interests of their own constituents in mind, can play a greater role in the legislative process. This is an issue that we duck at our peril.

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[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I have no doubt that he was. Eric Anderson was the headmaster who taught Tony Blair, but I do not think that either could be held responsible for the other; each must come to their own judgments on these matters.

I come to the central point about the accusation that government would become unworkable. It is not just my view, my opinion or my theory that that is nonsense. We know from our own history that it is a ludicrous argument; it is exactly what happens every time we have a hung Parliament. When there is such a Parliament, as there was between 1974 and 1979, there will be many occasions when Governments cannot get their legislation through. It does not necessarily mean the collapse of the Government unless it is on some fundamental issue of confidence. What happens is that Governments either have to withdraw the proposal or discuss it with their opponents and table amendments to make it more acceptable. That is also exactly what happens between the House of Commons and the House of Lords from time to time. It is what happens in the United States all the time. The current President of the US does not have a majority in Congress, so he can never be certain of getting any legislation through. The argument that a British Government would somehow find themselves in an unworkable and unacceptable situation because not all but some of their English-only legislation was so controversial that a majority of English Members could not be persuaded to vote for it and that that would create chaos in the workings of government is manifestly ludicrous. That argument cannot be put forward in any credible way.

[Mr Chope]

I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on his wisdom. Has he yet been approached by the Deputy Prime Minister to serve on this committee, which is yet to be set up? Surely, his service on that commission would be really useful.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I suspect that my hon. Friend’s intervention has guaranteed that that will not happen. In any event, I would rather give evidence to the committee than serve on it. We will have to wait and see.

Finally, it is the essence of a parliamentary system of government that Governments must not assume that they can always get their business through. They will occasionally be defeated and, if they believe that the issue is fundamental, they can ask for a motion of confidence to enable them to survive. It is not a barrier to the kind of change that I and others have recommended to say that a Government might from time to time have to amend or withdraw their proposals because they lacked parliamentary consent. The parliamentary consent is what matters, not the Government’s wishes.

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[Iain Stewart]

I was about to give an example of why it is still extremely valid to address the West Lothian question. Last May’s general election did not produce a parliamentary majority for any one party, but it did produce a majority in England for the Conservative party; the Conservatives won a clear overall majority of the seats in England. I accept that no party commanded an overall majority so we had to proceed to a coalition Government, but an alternative coalition to the current one could have been found, such as the “rainbow option” of Labour Members, Liberal Democrats, nationalists, Ulster Members and independents. In that case, the people of England who had voted clearly for a Conservative Government would have been denied that Government, and we would, I think, have entered uncharted constitutional waters. I think there would have been a strong uprising in England on the basis that the will of the English voters had been thwarted. That situation did not arise, but it could have, so this is a very live issue.

A similar situation may arise in this Parliament over a vote to reverse the ban on hunting. That ban applies only to England and Wales from a vote in this House, because the matter is devolved entirely to the Scottish Parliament. Let us suppose there was a clear majority among English and Welsh Members to reverse that ban, but in the House as a whole, with the addition of Scottish Members, there was a wish to keep the law as it is. Why should Scottish Members be able to influence the decision in England or in England and Wales? That situation could arise and, although it might not be the most dominant issue in our postbags, we have to provide for that eventuality.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Will he also consider what might happen in this review that we have been promised? What happens if the commission recommends changing the arrangements to answer the West Lothian question, but that is then unrepresentative of English opinion?

[Iain Stewart]

My hon. Friend raises an intriguing possibility. I hope that the commission does report, but we cannot move to a new arrangement without the agreement of those in the existing system; that is part of our process of constitutional evolution. I hope that we do get that commission and I gently encourage my Front-Bench colleagues to speed it up, because I will wholeheartedly support it.

I wish to discuss an intriguing point made by a former Secretary of State for Scotland in the previous Government, Helen Liddell. It relates to a separate issue but it makes the argument well. When we were debating whether the United Kingdom should join the euro, the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), set out five tests by which we should judge whether it was appropriate for the United Kingdom to do so. She made the point that a sixth test should form part of the overall considerations, which was the opportunity cost of not joining: was there a cost to the United Kingdom of not joining the euro? Similarly, we should consider the opportunity cost of not addressing the West Lothian question because if it is left unchecked at some point it will come back to undermine the Union. As a Unionist, that is the last thing that I want. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) was correct to say that this is an evolutionary process. I did not have the benefit of being tutored by Professor Bogdanor, but I was always taught by the equally eminent Professor Michael Rush at the university of Exeter that the British constitution is a product of evolution, not revolution. We should proceed on that basis, but that should not preclude us from turning our minds to this issue.

Theoretically, there are three perfect solutions to the West Lothian question, although I believe that we should reject them because they have other consequences that are either impractical or undesirable. The first option is that the Union ends, which is the wish of the Scottish National party, whose Members are clearly here in excessive number to debate this matter. They do have a perfect option, because under their solution the number of Scottish Members in this House would be zero and the West Lothian question would therefore not arise. However, for all sorts of economic, cultural and social reasons, I do not wish the Union to end.

The second option is to go back to the arrangement that was in place before we had the Scottish Parliament, either by abolishing that Parliament or by following the intriguing suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) that Members of this House who represent Scottish constituencies should then form the Scottish Parliament and on certain days—for example, Wednesdays and Thursdays—only English Members would debate in this place. I fear that that is not a practical option at the moment. There is certainly no appetite in Scotland for reversing the Scottish Parliament, and as it was set up by a referendum it can be undone only by a referendum. That may become an option at some point, but I do not see it as a viable option now. Nevertheless, the suggestion would provide a neat solution to the West Lothian question.

The third option is to move to a fully federal United Kingdom, with one United Kingdom Parliament legislating on the big national issues—the economy, international affairs, defence and so on—and the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, Northern Ireland Assembly and a body for England then dealing, on an equal basis, with the issues affecting those areas. Such a system works perfectly well in Germany, Australia, Canada and many other countries, but the problem would be how to solve the “English question” in a federal situation.

One option would be to have a separate English Parliament with the same powers as the Scottish Parliament. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington said, and as others have argued, the difficulty with that is that England would represent more than 80% of the population and more than 80% of the gross domestic product in one unit. I cannot think of a stable modern democracy with an advanced economy where there is such an overwhelming dominant part in a federation. Any other country with a federal system contains two or more big states that balance each other out. For example, Canada contains Ontario and Quebec, and Germany contains Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia. If England were to be a separate entity in a federal system, the arrangement would have too much of an imbalance.

The other option would be to atomise England into regions—for example, the north-east, the south-west, Greater London and so on. There may be various permutations, but there is simply no appetite in England for that, even in the part of England where there was, allegedly, the highest demand for a regional government—the north-east. When people there were given the option of a regional government a few years ago, they overwhelmingly rejected it. In addition, we would face enormous difficulty in dividing England up. Our debates on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill have included an argument about a cross-border constituency involving Cornwall and Devon. Goodness knows what would happen if we tried to draw a boundary involving Gloucestershire, Cornwall, Dorset and other areas to constitute “the south-west of England”. I simply do not believe that federalism is a viable option in this country.

All that brings us to an imperfect answer, as we are not going to create a perfect solution to the West Lothian question unless we go down one of those three avenues. The Bill is a helpful first step in paving the way to finding that answer. I have looked at all the options over many years, although not for as long as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington. I have ruled out some and I do take seriously the comment made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that we would encounter difficulties if we started excluding Members from voting on particular bits of legislation. I strongly hold the view that every Member in this House is equal and when we start tinkering with that, we enter dangerous waters.

I do believe, however, that there is a solution and I am happy to endorse the one proposed by my right hon. and learned Friend: some form of a double majority. In such a system no Member would be excluded from participating in a debate or voting on a particular Bill or part of a Bill, but there should then be a requirement that if that Bill applied wholly or exclusively to one part of the United Kingdom, an additional majority would be required among Members from that area.

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[Mr Harper]

I have just looked at the expression on you face, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I think that I am going to be generous and describe the hon. Gentleman’s use of the word “thieves” as an attempt at humour. I do not think that it was a very successful attempt, but this is perhaps the best way to get him out of the difficulty that he might otherwise have got himself into.

[Mr Chope]

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) is champing at the bit to give evidence to the commission. Will the Minister tell us when it is going to be set up, so that my right hon. and learned Friend can do that? I hope that it can be within weeks, rather than months.

[Mr Harper]

If my hon. Friend can wait just a little longer, I will come to that important point.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire had talked about the Welsh Grand Committee, and the hon. Member for Rhondda made a very telling comment—I am sure that he will correct me if I did not hear him correctly—when he leapt to his feet and said that the Committee was otherwise known as the Welsh grandstanding Committee. I think that that is what he called it; he is not demurring. He said that if that was the solution, we were not asking the right question. I wanted to ensure that I had heard him correctly, and to put on record that he thinks the Welsh Grand Committee is a grandstanding Committee. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will bear his opinion in mind when Welsh Labour Members are making bids for issues to be considered by the, as he called it, Welsh grandstanding Committee. I am sure that she will find his intervention extremely helpful.

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[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I had not intended to speak in the debate, but I must say that I am disappointed that the Minister was not more forthcoming about the commitment in the coalition agreement to establishing a commission. As he and other Members have observed, this issue is extremely complicated, so why are we now delaying even the appointment of the people who will consider it? We have already delayed for far too long. The original commitment was that the commission would be established before the end of 2010, but the Minister now expects us to accept as a big deal the information that he will make an announcement before the end of this year.

One great virtue of the Bill is that if it is given a Committee stage, members of the Committee will be able to maintain pressure on the Government to fulfil their commitment to do something. The Minister tells us that the cost of doing nothing about it is putting the Union at risk, which is pretty serious stuff, but at the moment the Government are doing nothing about it.

I would not expect my hon. Friend the Minister to comment on what I am about to say. Indeed, the reason I am able to speak after him is that he will not be able to comment on it. I think that the Deputy Prime Minister, who is in charge of my hon. Friend’s Department and is the person who can give the yea or nay to whether the commission is to be set up and when, has not got his heart in it. I hope that my hon. Friend will tell the Deputy Prime Minister that in the extra time that he will have next week, now that he has cancelled his trip to South America, he should give serious consideration to getting on with working out who will be on the commission and what will be its scope and remit. Surely the commission should be set up now, so that it can get to work before all the other stuff that is coming along is before the House. The last written answer on the issue says:

“Careful consideration is ongoing as to the timing, composition, scope and remit of the Commission to consider the… question.”

Some of us were not born yesterday. It is obvious that this is a stalling exercise by the Government. There was an unholy compromise in the coalition agreement but the Deputy Prime Minister is not even delivering on that compromise. He may realise that it could have implications for his party. There is no point, if the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have different views on the matter, trying to paper over the cracks. Why do we not get on and appoint the commission? Perhaps the coalition cannot even agree who could be on it, or what its scope and remit would be.

The written answer goes on to say that the commission

“will need to take account of our proposals to reform the House of Lords”.

Well, what has happened to those? We were told that a draft Bill would be published before Christmas. We have not seen that yet. We might be waiting another year or so before those proposals emerge.

The written answer goes on to say that the commission will need to take account of

“the changes being made to the way this House does business”.

There will be further changes to the way the House does business when the Backbench Business Committee is able to look at both Government legislation and Back-Bench business, and we are told that that will not start until the third year of this Parliament—another recipe for delay.

The written answer says that the commission will have to consider

“amendments to the devolution regimes”.

We know that a referendum will be held shortly in Wales, but why do we need to wait for the outcome of that before we set up the body that will look into these complex issues? There is then a reference to the fact that there is

“the Scotland Bill presently before the House”.

The written answer concludes; it is similar to what my hon. Friend the Minister has said today:

“We will make an announcement later this year.”—[Official Report, 31 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 549W.]

It does not even say that the commission will be set up later this year.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) for having a stab at what is an extremely complex issue. People perhaps more learned in the law than she is, such as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), had a go at the issue. More than 100 of us came to support him when his Bill had its Second Reading debate to ensure that it could get into Committee. It was then kicked into the long grass. That shows for how long the issue has been discussed.

I remain suspicious about the motives of the Deputy Prime Minister. I think that he is stalling seriously on the issue. If the Bill goes into Committee it will give all hon. Members the opportunity to keep the pressure on the Government to meet what was a pretty meaningless commitment in the coalition agreement anyway. At least it would be something.

[Mr Harper]

I know that my hon. Friend is not perhaps the most enthusiastic supporter of the coalition Government but I think that he sees mischief where there is none. The clear message from the thoughtful speeches of all Members today is that the issue is complicated. If the Government are to deal with it calmly and sensibly and in a manner that does not put the Union at risk, we must proceed thoughtfully and properly. However, I have given a clear commitment that we need to deal with the matter and answer the question. Therefore, I urge him to be a bit more generous in spirit.

[Mr Chope]

I am generous by nature but I would be even more generous if my hon. Friend had explained why it has turned out to be impossible for the Government to appoint the commission before Christmas, as they originally intended.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

May I come to the support of the Minister, and on a constitutional issue, which may surprise him? Our consideration of the earlier legislation on the alternative vote, parliamentary boundaries and fixed-term Parliaments was desperately rushed, and therefore its measures were not necessarily very well thought through, which is a great shame. In contrast, the progress we are making towards considering the West Lothian question in a deliberative and thorough way is in the best traditions of high Toryism.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think that these deliberations should be conducted by the commission itself, however, rather than by the Government, and I do not want the Government to be agonising over whether there should be a commission and, if so, who will serve on it. I do not think my hon. Friend and I are very far apart, as I believe the commission must be given the maximum amount of time to go into the details of this topic. However, if we are going to get this sorted out before the end of this fixed-term Parliament, why have we not got on with it already? What is the reason for the delay? It seems to me that the justifications for delay put forward thus far are specious in the extreme, and we have learned from experience that if a Government have not got a proper explanation for delay, the reason is usually that they intended to delay matters, as is the case now.

[Ian Paisley]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept, however, that he cannot have both sides of the argument? He cannot claim that this is a very complex and complicated issue to resolve, but also say, “But here’s an easy way to get it sorted out.” Does he not recognise that there are two ways to skin this rat, as it were, and that the commission offered today is perhaps one of those ways?

[Mr Chope]

I think the hon. Gentleman is on the same side as I am on that, because I am saying not that this is an easy issue to sort out, but that the coalition Government agreed to set up a commission to consider it, yet until the commission is set up it cannot start considering it. I cannot understand why the commission has not yet been set up and why my hon. Friend the Minister cannot give a commitment that it will be set up sooner rather than later. Instead, he just talks vaguely about something happening towards the end of this year. That will be one and a half years into this Parliament, and it would mean that if the commission were to come up with legislative proposals, the chances of being able to get them through in this Parliament would be significantly reduced unless the commission concertinaed its work into a very short space of time.

That is what leads me to conclude—I think any rational observer would conclude this—that the Government have not got their heart in this. They are hopelessly split between the Liberal Democrat agenda and the Conservative party agenda, which was clearly set out in our manifesto. We compromised on that in the coalition agreement, and we have given the tools whereby that compromise might be taken forward, namely the setting up of the commission, to the leader of the Liberal Democrat party. I do not think he has got his heart in trying to achieve any progress on this matter, however. I sympathise enormously with the Minister, but I hope that by getting the Bill into Committee we will be able to maintain the pressure. That is why I support the Bill.