House of Commons Business

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is free to make his own contribution to the debate. For my part, I hope I have explained what we intend to achieve through the motion. Colleagues will have had the opportunity to look at the debate in the House of Lords, and I hope that exactly the same was clear from the nature of that debate. The purpose is to ensure that we have, in both Houses, an understanding that we should not have mutually conflicting approaches to legislation. We should approach legislation in a consistent fashion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) told us, we should have a way of recognising the application of parliamentary privilege to the proceedings of this House. We should also ensure that, in so far as we intend legislation to apply to this House and where it may have an impact on the boundaries of parliamentary privilege, we put express provisions in the legislation to show, for Parliament’s purposes, what we believe the nature of those provisions and their application should be. That is what we are setting out to do.

On proposed new Standing Order No. 33, Members may recall, from the debate on the motion for an address in answer to the Queen’s Speech last May, that the current Standing Order does not provide absolute clarity on the number of amendments that may be selected on the final day of the debate. To be clear, a revised Standing Order is not an attempt to prevent you, Mr Speaker, from selecting an amendment, as you did on that occasion. It would not prevent you from doing that. As you will recall, you selected an amendment signed by Back Benchers on the omission from the Gracious Speech of an EU referendum Bill. That was, in fact, the second amendment selected, in line with normal practice. The third amendment selected, tabled by Plaid Cymru Members, was the one beyond normal practice that would not, under previous practice, have been allowed.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will recall that he put down a motion on the Order Paper last autumn to restrict Mr Speaker’s discretion to accepting only three amendments. I am glad, as the person who blocked that original motion, that he has had second thoughts and is now going to allow Mr Speaker to select up to four amendments. Can my right hon. Friend explain why he feels we need to inhibit Mr Speaker exercising his discretion in this matter?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend asks me to complete my speech, which, happily, is what I intend to do.

The interpretation of the Standing Order that allowed the selection of the third amendment on that final day leaves open the possibility of an unlimited number of amendments for separate debate. That introduces both an unwelcome element of uncertainty, in particular if Members were to table several amendments regretting the exclusion of their favourite Bill from the Queen’s Speech. I am not sure that Members or the Chair would want such a rich choice; nor do I think it was the intention of the Standing Order, when it was originally drafted, to permit votes.

What I am seeking, for the benefit of the House, is greater certainty. Members will want to know the maximum number of amendments that may be selected in order to judge whether to table one themselves. It is a matter of degree as to whether the total number of amendments selected should be limited to three or four. Do we want to spend more time debating or voting? The question in my mind originally was: what is the purpose of amendments, principally when the debate on the motion for an address is concerned? It is, essentially, an opportunity for competing views on the legislative programme as a whole to be debated. Therefore, my original preference is for what we had thought was the status quo—that is, three amendments under the Standing Order—but I am congenitally relaxed about the number being four.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lansley]

Happily, I have had an opportunity to read the report of the hon. Gentleman’s Select Committee. As his Committee was sitting earlier this morning, he was not in his place for business questions, when I took an opportunity to refer to the report. His Committee pointed out that the certainty surrounding a fixed-term Parliament provides greater opportunity for the planning of legislation, with a greater understanding of how much legislative time will be available. When he hears the Queen’s Speech early next month, he will see that a substantial legislative programme is intended for the full Session. That will not prevent us from meeting our obligations under Standing Orders for Back-Bench debates, Opposition time and other requirements. Indeed, in this Session, we have exceeded them, so we are already providing time for precisely the things that the hon. Gentleman seeks.

[Mr Chope]

Let me draw out my right hon. Friend further on whether he thinks it is a good idea that Back Benchers should be able collectively to table amendments in the Queen’s Speech debates. It obviously struck a chord with the people when that happened—on the issue of the EU referendum—during the last Queen’s Speech debates. Were there no coalition after the next election and three Opposition parties with reasonable representation, Mr Speaker might feel that his discretion had to be exercised in favour of those Opposition parties. It is possible that, even with four amendments, the opportunity for Back Benchers to put forward amendments in the hope of their being selected by Mr Speaker would be excluded. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he thinks it is important that Back Benchers have such an opportunity? If, after the next election, there were more official Opposition parties, would he recommend returning to the issue to allow for more than four amendments?

[Mr Lansley]

I would say two things about that. First, it is open to the House to reconsider these issues in the future. The original drafting of Standing Order No. 33 was partly a product of the political and party composition of the House in the 1970s. One could consider circumstances in which the House might think it appropriate to expand the opportunities in future for parties, were there a multiplicity of them, to express their collective view on the legislative programme as a whole through amendments.

That brings me to my second point. At the outset of this part of the debate, I want to emphasise that the issue did not really arise in relation to the Back-Bench amendment last year, because it was selectable and selected on the basis of the previous interpretation of the Standing Orders. That was not the issue—the issue was the additional Plaid Cymru amendment. However, were we to go down the path of thinking that on each motion for an address, it would be appropriate to debate the inclusion or exclusion of individual Bills, that would posit the question whether the purpose of the motion for an address is something other than an expression about the legislative programme as a whole. Amendments designed for that purpose should relate to the whole legislative programme rather than to individual Bills.

I have expressed my view on Standing Order No. 33, and I hope that the House will support the recommendations of the Procedure Committee in that respect. There are a number of motions before us, and I hope the House will support the making of these changes, which I believe will be positive. Notwithstanding the fact that we will have a good debate about them, they were intended to be brought forward in a consensual spirit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

That is an important point. In this House, simply because the Government normally have a majority and because timetabling exists, there is the capacity for Bills pass through their stages fairly quickly. No such capacity exists in the other place, and the Government of the day are therefore tempted to try to get their Bills through this House as rapidly as possible and then fix them in the other House. That is a real problem when the other House is not democratic. I think that we must see what we can do to improve the capacity of this House to scrutinise legislation, albeit in the context of the generally accepted view that, in the British political system, the Government should be allowed to secure their legislation. The Opposition and other Members ought to be allowed to scrutinise Bills adequately as well, and it is with that balance that we are wrestling now.

Another issue that I raised in a letter to the Chair of the Procedure Committee about the proposed trial is the importance of giving Opposition parties enough time to respond to Government amendments when they are tabled. I know the Government say that they try to table amendments a week before the deadline, but that happens too infrequently. Perhaps the Deputy Leader of the House will tell us whether he would consider extending the trial and giving the Government a deadline perhaps a day before that given to other Members, so that opposition Members—be they small groups of Government Members, large groups of Government Members, or members of the Official Opposition—have a chance to respond to Government amendments in a sensible way.

The final motion proposes changes to Standing Order No. 33, which relates to amendments to the Queen’s Speech. To date, Mr Speaker, you have had discretion to decide which amendments will be called in the debate following the Queen’s Speech, which sets out the Government’s legislative programme for the parliamentary Session. The amendment to the Standing Order proposes to change that by limiting the number of amendments that you may call to four. That extends by one the number to which the Government were originally determined to limit you, and it represents a welcome Government climbdown in the face of a likely defeat. We naturally support it, with good grace and, perhaps, a little snigger.

I am sure that Members will recall last year’s Queen’s Speech, when nearly 100 Conservative Eurosceptic Back Benchers tabled an amendment to “respectfully regret” their own Government’s legislative programme, and 130 Members backed it in what was a humiliating blow to the Prime Minister’s authority. The amendment forced the Prime Minister to commit to legislating for a referendum in this Parliament on possible European Union treaty changes which have not yet even been talked about and which may or may not happen. This shows we have a Prime Minister who is more interested in managing his own unruly party than acting in Britain’s national interest, but it also demonstrates that his own Back Benchers are running scared of UKIP and do not believe a word he says on Europe.

In the light of last year’s debacle, it is no wonder the Government are so keen to limit the number of Queen’s Speech amendments and it is ironic that the threat of mutiny on their Back Benches, supported by the Opposition, is what forced the Leader of the House to concede that he should now perhaps agree with the Procedure Committee’s figure of four, rather than his original number of three.

[Mr Chope]

If the hon. Lady is so concerned about this, why did the Opposition not table a blocking motion to the original Government proposal, which would have gone through on the nod if it had not been for my blocking motion?

[Ms Eagle]

I cannot recall the intricacies of what happened. The hon. Gentleman is always assiduous in these things, but I think there was somebody on the Labour Benches who objected at the same time. The hon. Gentleman has a very loud voice and has a lot more practice in objecting to these motions than almost anyone else in the House, which is why he probably got his objection in first.

I accept that the Leader of the House has now backed down on this, and because he has, we are happy to accept the motion before us today, which will limit, for now, the number of amendments to four. I listened with interest to the earlier debate about how that might change and I welcome the Leader of the House’s admission that if the composition of the House were to change or the circumstances of a future Parliament were different, Standing Order No. 33 may once again come under the microscope. At least he has accepted the inevitable and changed his motion, and because of that we are more than happy to support him should there be a vote today.