All-party Parliamentary Groups

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Chris Bryant]

That was an idea that we toyed with. It was put to us that we should have a gatekeeper who would decide whether there could be, for instance, an all-party group for each of the Caribbean countries and one for the Caribbean as a whole, and one for each of the overseas territories as well as one for the overseas territories. The danger with that is the question of how to set the criteria for that person to be able to decide. It would mean putting a great deal of power in the hands of one individual, and that is why in the end we rejected the idea. We have reached a different set of conclusions, which we hope will lead to the same eventual outcome: that someone who currently chairs, or is an officer, of three APPGs in a fairly similar field will say, “Do you know what? I am going to try to get them all to combine, and I want to be the chair of the one.”

The guiding principle for us has been, first and foremost, that APPGs are, broadly speaking, a good thing, but there is a danger that they can be a very, very bad thing. It is certainly a bad thing if a commercial interest is effectively suborning Parliament, gaining a kind of accreditation by virtue of the APPG name. I would argue that this gets particularly acute when the secretariat is provided by an external body that is not even a charity but a PR company or a lobbying company. It seems to me that there is a commercial interest in their making APPGs just to keep themselves in business, and that is an inappropriate way for us to proceed. It leaves us open to real reputational risk for the whole House.

I will go through some of the points that have been made, starting with those made by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers). He said that he was a trade envoy and an officer for six groups. I know that some trade envoys have decided no longer to be officers of the relevant groups because they are the trade envoy who has a relationship with the Government in relation to those countries. I gently suggest to him that that is a better, or perhaps more appropriate, way of proceeding. I understand fully why he may have ended up being a trade envoy, which is a good thing to be, although I worry about quite how the Government make people trade envoys and retain their commitment to the Government by virtue of doing so. I understand that he might have got there because of expressing his interest through those various groups. I would also say to Members that being a member of an all-party group is a perfectly satisfactory way of signifying to the country and to their constituents that they are supportive of it. They do not have to be an officer in every instance.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Has the hon. Gentleman been in for the whole of the debate? [Hon. Members: “No.”] In which case, I will not. I am sorry.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) is not giving way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Having said that, I now feel that I have been discourteous and I am going to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The point I was going to make is that there seems to be an issue about the definition of membership of an APPG. My understanding is that anybody who is not a member of the Government is a member of an APPG. The hon. Gentleman himself was once involved in a contested election to become chair of the APPG on Russia, and some 200 Members across both Houses we dragooned into voting in that election. They were not registered members of that APPG, but they happened to qualify because they were ordinary Members of Parliament.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

The rules specify that anybody who is not a member of the Government can be a member and an officer of an all-party group. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I remember the occasion when he, among many others, came to a meeting on the top floor and we had about 350 people voting at an APPG extraordinary general meeting just to get rid of me—over Russia, ironically enough.

The important point the Committee is trying to underline is that an all-party parliamentary group should only be an all-party parliamentary group if it has enough support among the 1,450 Members of this House and the other House to be able to have a proper AGM attended by five Members, for heaven’s sake, and with 20 Members expressing support. That is important because, otherwise, it is very easy for an APPG to be run by an individual Member on behalf of a commercial interest or in pursuit of a personal agenda, bringing along their friends just once a year. That is the evil we are trying to address.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Unfortunately, the proposed rules we are being asked to adopt this afternoon say:

“A Member of the House of Commons may be an officer of a maximum of six Groups.

An APPG must have at least 20 members”.

I think the hon. Gentleman is talking about 20 registered members, because all Members of both Houses, other than members of the Government, are automatically members of APPGs if they so wish.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

No, they are not automatically a member of all APPGs, otherwise every APPG would have 1,450 members. The hon. Gentleman needs to read the rules and the guide to the rules, both of which are available from the Vote Office, as they make all of this perfectly clear.

The point the Committee is trying to make is that every APPG should have a properly constituted annual general meeting, should have a limited number of officers—who have full responsibility for the running of the APPG, and for making sure it operates under the rules of the House and does not expose the House to further reputational damage—and should have enough registered members on the list it submits each year to be able to qualify as a proper all-party parliamentary group.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) refers to the guide to the rules on all-party parliamentary groups. I went out to try to get a copy of this document from the Vote Office and was able to get one copy, but there were no other copies available. The Vote Office is currently trying to print more copies. Considering how few Members there are in the Chamber, it seems most unsatisfactory that we have such a small number of copies of the guide to the rules, which extends to a very large number of pages. Why can we not all see this before we reach a conclusion?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

What is the point of order?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

This debate should not conclude until all Members present have had an opportunity to read the guide to the rules on all-party parliamentary groups, a copy of which is not yet available to every Member.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I have received no other complaints from hon. and right hon. Members that they do not have a copy. As the hon. Gentleman says, he has not been here for the whole debate, so he has not heard a lot of the other arguments. It is a bit discourteous to keep disrupting the debate in this way. We should allow the Chair of the Standards Committee to finish his speech without interruption through points of order, which is a poor approach when we are having a debate. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) is on the Panel of Chairs, so I hope he would understand.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I agree, and I hope others have heard what my hon. Friend said.

I refer again to pages 55 to 74 of the guide to the rules. It may or may not surprise colleagues that that is appendix 5, on data protection and APPGs—page after page after page of MPs who run groups telling MPs who may be members of the group, or who may be on a mailing list, how we handle their data. That is one of those things where we move ten places across, from one thing to another, without anybody on the Standards Committee understanding at all what was being put forward.

I do not know whether the Chair of the Standards Committee has experience of trying to administer all-party groups. Getting the detail right is important. We try to get it right, and we make some mistakes, but to add in an extra 20 pages for each group that we may be involved in, even if we are limited to six groups, gives us more than 100 pages to fill in. It is bureaucracy. If the only people who can be members of those groups are Members of Parliament, what on earth are we trying to do? That should not be there, and I hope that it is taken out.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Another unintended consequence is that, if a group is allowed only four officers, and one of those officers is appointed to the Government, or falls under a bus, the group will be unable to operate until it has had a formal meeting to elect a replacement. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is so rigid as to be unworkable?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. This debate has to finish in nine minutes, and one more Member wishes to speak before the Minister. The hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) has been speaking for 12 minutes, and I would like to give five minutes to the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett).