Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

It was on Monday, when I was in eastern Europe monitoring elections, that I heard the sad news of Margaret’s death. In a sense, it was appropriate that I was out in eastern Europe witnessing democracy in action. In my view, that would not have been possible but for the work Margaret Thatcher did in destroying communism and opening up eastern Europe to proper democracy.

We have heard brilliant tributes today, led by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who encapsulated, as did the Leader of the Opposition, so many of the values we hold dear when we remember Margaret Thatcher. I was grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for reminding the House of the difference between consensus and conviction. That is the problem that many Government Members have—the coalition muddles consensus and conviction, which those of us who are conviction politicians find incredibly frustrating.

The theme I should like briefly to pursue is compassion, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) spoke so eloquently. Margaret Thatcher was a passionate Conservative, but she was also a compassionate Conservative. When I first met her in 1976—I was then chairman of Putney Conservatives—she visited an old people’s day centre in Putney, where I saw her in action. She spoke to every single person in the day centre sitting room. She, as leader of the Conservative party, knelt down in order to be able to converse meaningfully with those who could not speak to her easily. That, for me, was a demonstration of her humility and compassion.

People have spoken about the way in which Margaret Thatcher would write letters to colleagues who had been bereaved and so on. A few years ago, my wife was in hospital. The flowers from Margaret Thatcher arrived before my own, which was rather embarrassing. That was the extent to which she was on the ball with her generosity and kindness not only to colleagues, but to their wives.

I agreed with Margaret Thatcher on almost everything. The only big issue on which I disagreed with her fundamentally was her decision not to stand in the second ballot in 1990. If she had stood, I think that she would have won and that the course of history would have been different. I am sad that those of us who went into her study that evening to persuade her to change her mind were unsuccessful. It was typical of her that she sent special notes to all of us who had tried to persuade her to stay on. It was a humiliating experience for that fantastic Prime Minister. Having been in that study and seen her condition, I would not wish it on anybody. Somebody who had served her country with such distinction and who had been a global leader in bringing freedom to much of eastern Europe was humiliated by people whom she thought were her friends and colleagues. I thought and still think that that was intolerable. May that sort of thing never happen again.

In 1997, Margaret came and supported my election campaign in Christchurch, where we were trying to overturn the majority of about 16,000 that the Liberal Democrats had won in the 1993 by-election. That was her first outing in the campaign. She was confronted by the press because one of our colleagues who was standing in Tatton had suddenly hit the headlines. Margaret demonstrated her ability to deal with the press with a phrase or, as in this case, a very short sentence that could not result in any follow-up. When asked about Neil Hamilton, she said, “Nobody is perfect.” In those three words, she closed down the conversation, because she was not passing judgment on his case, but saying something that applies to all of us. That is an example of how she was able to deal with the press and choose words that were effective.

Later on the same visit, we went on a private visit to the Priory primary school in Christchurch, where Margaret demonstrated other attributes: the ability to listen and the ability to speak her mind. She said to a nine-year-old, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” He said, “I want to be a musician.” She paused and stared with her wonderful eyes at this young man and said, “And what else do you want to be?” That demonstrated that she did nothing for effect. When she asked somebody a question, she was willing to listen to the answer and make a comment. She gave that person the benefit of her views, whether they liked it or not. I hope that that individual is now a successful musician. If he is not, I hope that he has a back-up, which is what she was saying he ought to have.

It is a fantastic privilege to have this opportunity to pay tribute to, in my view, the greatest Prime Minister of all time. Sometimes one sits in the Chamber and it takes a long time to be called, but it has been a privilege to gather together today and listen to every contribution. If the debate goes on until 10 o’clock, as I hope it will, that will be some compensation for the loss of this great lady.

Collective Ministerial Responsibility

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. The debate is surprisingly topical. Only two hours ago in the Chamber, in response to an urgent question from the Opposition, the Minister responsible for press regulation, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, answered on behalf of not the Government, but the Conservative party, which I thought was rather bizarre. There followed a contribution from the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech)—who is not a member of the Government or part of ministerial collective responsibility—who purported to make a statement on behalf of the Liberal Democrat party. Surely the whole purpose of collective ministerial responsibility is to ensure that there is certainty outside about the Government’s view on a particular issue, so that they do not speak with forked tongue.

Although I welcome the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who will respond to the debate, I am rather disappointed that the Prime Minister is not here in person, because it was primarily his failure to answer my written questions on how he exercises collective ministerial responsibility that caused me to request the debate.

I started asking questions about the subject in December. I asked the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr Maude)—to whom my question to the Prime Minister was transferred—about the number of occasions on which collective ministerial responsibility had been set aside in this Parliament. I received a non-answer. I then went to ask some questions directly of the Prime Minister, but again my questions were not answered. Some of those non-answers are referred to in the briefing that is available to hon. Members. I will not go through those answers, because they are not answers. I could not understand why the Prime Minister was so reluctant to be accountable to Members of Parliament and put a straight answer to a straight question on how many occasions collective ministerial responsibility had been set aside.

After the set of answers—or non-answers—from the Prime Minister, I asked specific questions about what had happened in relation to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill last month. During consideration of Lords amendments, the Leader of the House of Commons announced that collective ministerial responsibility had been set aside—the first time that we have heard officially that that has happened—and, in answer to my intervention, explained that that was the Prime Minister’s decision. Following that, I asked the Prime Minister on what day he had set aside ministerial responsibility in relation to the Bill and the reasons for that. I have had no answers to those questions; in fact, I have had a deliberate refusal to answer. I cannot understand why, because I thought that the Government were interested in transparency and openness and that they would want to put their answers on the record.

My last stab at trying to get some answers from the Prime Minister was in the form of questions, which were answered on Monday this week. I asked,

“what the arrangements are for informing Ministers of the setting aside of collective ministerial responsibility in respect of votes in the House”

and

“on how many occasions a formal Cabinet decision has been made to set aside collective ministerial responsibility in the last 12 months.”

The answer I received was:

“It has been the practice of successive Governments not to disclose information relating to internal discussions”—

I did not ask about internal discussions, of course—

“information or forums in which decisions are made.”—[Official Report, 11 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 462W.]

Apparently that is the Government’s policy.

However, that does not fit in well with a report in The Daily Telegraph on 15 January, by Tim Ross, about the “revolt”—as he put it—in the upper Chamber by six of the seven Liberal Democrat Front Benchers, who voted against the coalition Government on the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. He wrote:

“Downing Street said Prime Minister David Cameron would seek to overturn the amendment in the Commons, but without an overall…majority the parliamentary arithmetic is against him. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg had formally agreed to suspend the convention of ‘collective responsibility’ which applies to all Cabinet ministers on Government decisions. No. 10 said the decision to suspend ministerial responsibility, agreed before the Lords vote yesterday, was ‘the first time it has happened under this Coalition’.”

In a sense, a No. 10 spokesman was giving answers to my parliamentary questions, which the Prime Minister himself had refused to answer before the House. I find that extraordinary.

The situation was compounded. The article continued:

“Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, witnessed and recorded the agreement between the Tory and Lib Dem leaders yesterday and ruled that the approach was permissible under current rules governing the ministerial code.”

Where does that fit in with the non-answer that I received from the Prime Minister, saying that it is not the practice to disclose information relating to internal discussions, information or forums in which decisions are made?

The article continued:

“‘Having consulted the Cabinet Secretary they (Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg) have recorded their agreement to set aside collective responsibility on this occasion,’ the spokesman said.”

My concerns are, first, to see whether we can get the issue of collective ministerial responsibility out in the open, and secondly, to chide the Government and the Prime Minister—I have to name him, as head of the Government —for not following the policy that he has said he would follow, which is to promote transparency in government.

In a speech the Prime Minister made on 26 May 2009, titled “Fixing broken politics”, he said, under the sub-heading of “Transparency”, that

“there’s one more item on the agenda: transparency. Ask most people where politics happens and they’d paint a picture of tight-knit tribes making important decisions in wood-panelled rooms, speaking a strange language. If we want people to have faith and get involved, we need to defeat this impression by opening politics up—making everything transparent, accessible and human. And the starting point for reform should be a near-total transparency of the political and governing elite, so people can see what is being done in their name.”

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for spelling out his argument. Before the upper House broke ranks, as it were, when some Liberals voted with the Labour party and most Conservatives voted with the Government, was it clear that that would happen? Those of us who just read the newspapers were told that it was a surprise; we were not told that it was planned in advance by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, because the revolt was on primary legislation, whereas the only issue on which the Deputy Prime Minister had given notice that he would lead his troops in the opposite direction to the rest of the coalition was when, in August, he said he would withdraw his support for any Boundary Commission proposals put through the House via a statutory instrument. The revolt must have come as a bit of a surprise, but back in August he was giving public notice that he himself would set aside collective Cabinet responsibility, with or without the Prime Minister’s consent. In light of the information I have set out, it seems as though there was no consent at that stage to set aside collective ministerial responsibility.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend express a view in his narrative on whether the principle of collective ministerial responsibility is being applied rather capriciously? I have in mind those Parliamentary Private Secretaries who had to resign their admittedly very junior Government positions because they were in favour of an in/out referendum on Europe, which is now such a mainstream policy that the Opposition are being taunted about whether they, too, subscribe to it. Does he know whether those people have been offered their jobs back and on what definition of collective responsibility they were deprived of them in the first place?

[Mr Chope]

That is a telling point. All I know is that, for one Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Private Secretary who voted against the Government on tuition fees and consequently was forced to resign her position, it was only a few weeks before she was reinstated, and she has subsequently reached ministerial level. That is the rule that seems to apply to minority members of the coalition. As far as those on the Conservative side of the coalition are concerned, I have no information that suggests any Parliamentary Private Secretary who has been forced to resign has subsequently been reinstated, even if their reinstatement would coincide with a change of Government policy.

On the face of it, double standards seem to be operating, which is why transparency on the rules that apply to Parliamentary Private Secretaries is important. I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will be rather more forthcoming than the Prime Minister has been so far, because collective ministerial responsibility is a developing subject. We have already heard the Prime Minister, having initially said that he has not made up his mind, publicly say that, in the event of an in/out referendum in the next Parliament, which we all welcome, it would not be possible for members of his Government to vote for us to leave the European Union if he, the Prime Minister, were of the opinion that we should stay in the European Union. Collective ministerial responsibility apparently will not, therefore, be set aside on that very important issue, on which divisions within the Conservative party, and indeed across parties, go very deep.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

If the Prime Minister were not to achieve the great repatriation of powers that he expects, and if he were to choose instead to lead the campaign to leave the European Union, would the same provisions for collective responsibility apply?

[Mr Chope]

I do not know, but it is a good question. Unfortunately, the only way to receive an on-the-record response to that question from the Prime Minister is by tabling a parliamentary question. So far, there are no responses to such questions on the record, but perhaps the Minister will be able to enlighten my hon. Friend with an answer.

Obviously, a lot of people are saying, “If we are to have a renegotiation, we should wait to see the outcome before deciding whether we wish to leave.” That view is taken, for example, by the Mayor of London, and it seems odd to announce at this stage that in the future, irrespective of how much or how little is clawed back as a result of renegotiation, no one will be allowed to vote against the Government by voting to leave the European Union, without giving up their ministerial position. Of course that is different from when we last had a referendum on the European Union, when it was possible for members of the Government to campaign on either side of the argument.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

My hon. Friend referred to Parliamentary Private Secretaries resigning over European votes, even though what they resigned over is now effectively Government policy, but what about casualties of the vote on House of Lords reform? The interpretation of many Conservatives, including me, is that they were not voting against their Government because the coalition agreement simply stated that a committee would be established to bring forward proposals, yet they lost their jobs. Just a few months later, they see Liberal Democrat Ministers walking through the Lobby to vote against coalition policy although there was not a comma between the reform of parliamentary boundaries and the alternative vote referendum.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes a good point that demonstrates the inconsistency, and the feeling of unfairness, or even injustice, that it generates among parliamentary colleagues. That is why I hope for clarification on to what extent, if at all, the Government have altered the concept of collective ministerial responsibility. It seems to many, including from a number of comments made by Liberal Democrats, that notwithstanding what is said in the coalition agreement and the guidance for Ministers, there has been a change in the approach to collective ministerial responsibility.

One of the problems is that the Deputy Prime Minister cannot differentiate between collective ministerial responsibility and collective responsibility. He sees everything in terms of coalition, and thinks that Back-Bench Members of either the Conservative party or the Liberal Democrats have responsibility equal to that of members of the coalition Government, which is palpably wrong.

At oral questions yesterday, I asked the Deputy Prime Minister whether he would

“make it a priority to introduce transparency into collective ministerial responsibility, which seems to be being set aside without any proper accountability to the public or the House”.

He replied:

“As the hon. Gentleman and I have discussed before, collective responsibility prevails where there is a collective agreement and a collective decision on which collective responsibility is based. It is not easy, and certainly not possible to enforce collective responsibility in the absence of a collective decision taken first.”—[Official Report, 12 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 697.]

I think A-level English language students will in due course be asked to interpret that. By muddling up collective ministerial responsibility and collective party political responsibility, the Deputy Prime Minister demonstrates a lack of understanding of the significance and importance of the concept of collective ministerial responsibility; its importance is that it gives certainty to people outside who want to know about Government policy.

The Liberal Democrats have a history of speaking with forked tongue. They often enunciate a different policy for different groups of potential electors, or electors in different parts of the country, because they think no one will check on the inconsistencies between policies. It seems as though their attitude towards speaking with forked tongue is tainting the whole Government.

I worry that a lack of intellectual rigour is being brought to the issue. That goes to the heart of the governance of our country. It is not just an academic topic to be discussed in essays; it bears on how the Government operate, the predictability with which they operate and, most importantly, the information available to people who rely on Government decisions. As I said at the outset, the situation today is that nobody knows the Government’s view on press regulation, because all that we had in response to the urgent question were statements in the House from party spokesmen. The issue will develop further in future, which is why we need proper accountability.

In a debate on 29 January, I asked my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to tell us who had set aside collective responsibility and, if it was the Prime Minister, why. He said:

“My hon. Friend will be aware that the Prime Minister has responsibility for the ministerial code. Indeed, when ministerial collective responsibility is explicitly set aside, it is the Prime Minister who makes that decision”—

the Prime Minister alone, not the Deputy Prime Minister. The Leader of the House continued:

“He is clearly doing it, as the House will understand, in the context of coalition government.” —[Official Report, 29 January 2013; Vol. 557, c. 807-8.]

When I asked the Prime Minister about that, all I got was a reference back to what the Leader of the House had said, even though according to the Leader of the House, the Prime Minister is solely responsible, and therefore accountable for the policy.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Cannot the entirety of what he is saying be summed up in one sentence? I speak with some experience from Northern Ireland. When political parties and philosophies in a coalition are diametrically opposed, inevitably we will end up with the problem that he is trying to rationalise.

[Mr Chope]

I submit that we should not necessarily end up with that problem. We know that one of the disadvantages of coalition government is that it leads to indecision, lowest common denominator decision-making and so on, but lowest common denominator decision-making does at least have a lowest common denominator. What we seem to have is a Government who take two parallel decisions at the same time and pick and mix.

That is evidenced further by the answer given yesterday to complaints about the change in the Government’s approach to inheritance tax. The answer, given by the Secretary of State for Health, was that there is an important difference between promises made by the Conservatives while in opposition and pledges made after the coalition agreement:

“That commitment on inheritance tax was a Conservative manifesto commitment. It’s not in the coalition agreement, so there is an important difference”.

It is not in the coalition agreement, but it is not specifically ruled out of the agreement either. Now the coalition and the agreement are being used as excuses for basically ripping up any policy that the Government do not like and replacing it with another. That is creating a lot of confusion among people outside, who are wondering where that leaves manifestos. We vote for parties on the basis of manifestos. If at the next general election a lot of people vote for the Conservative party on the basis that they will get an in/out referendum, and we then find that we do not have an overall majority and enter into some sort of coalition agreement, the manifesto pledge on which we got so many millions of votes will be torn up.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I am afraid that I am surprised that my hon. Friend has taken so long to realise that the creation of the coalition automatically meant the ripping up of the manifestos, except in so far as the manifesto policies were identical to those in the coalition agreement. Wherever they were not, all bets were off. That is what is so undemocratic about coalition politics.

I have a question to put to my hon. Friend. Let us say that our starting point is what was in the coalition agreement, forgetting about the manifestos. What does he think should happen under collective ministerial responsibility if one of the parties to the coalition agreement decides that, after all, it is not going to abide by a particular policy to which it signed up? What sanction would the Prime Minister have, for example, if the Deputy Prime Minister decided to renege? Would he basically sack the entire Liberal Democrat party from the coalition? Can we live in hope of that?

[Mr Chope]

I know that my hon. Friend and I come from a similar position on this issue; neither of us was an enthusiast of the coalition in the first place. I certainly went on record as saying that we would have been much better off having a minority Government untainted by the Liberal Democrats.

To answer my hon. Friend, that is a question for the Prime Minister. He is solely responsible for collective ministerial responsibility. If he had chosen not to set aside collective ministerial responsibility in relation to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, it probably would have been the end of the coalition. He would have ordered the Deputy Prime Minister to resign on the basis that he had breached collective ministerial responsibility, along with all the other Liberal Democrat Ministers who had done so. Then he could either have carried on with a minority Conservative Government and given people such as my hon. Friend the opportunity to join the Government as a Minister. Or, if there had been a subsequent vote of no confidence, we would have had a general election.

However, we cannot carry on like this, gradually eroding the principle of collective ministerial responsibility without anybody being held properly to account. Either the coalition Government stick together on the basis of collective ministerial responsibility or they break asunder, leading to an early general election, which I would certainly favour; that is my personal view. Otherwise, we face two years ahead during which there will be an increasing amount of muddle on these issues. We have only seen the beginning of it so far.

I am delighted that other hon. Members have come along to participate in this debate, as it is important. Although I would have been happy to have a half-hour Adjournment debate, it demonstrates that a much wider audience is interested in the issue, including colleagues from all parties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Nick Harvey]

It is certainly not for me to speak for the Prime Minister or the Government, because I am no longer a member of the Government. However, my hon. Friend is right: the question is about the nature of the agreement made. At the outset of a five-year term, an attempt is made to agree a coalition agreement that is to run for the five years. Such an agreement was novel territory in UK politics. We had not seen one for a long time. There were pressing economic circumstances in May 2010, as there still are today, and the judgment was made by both sides in the negotiation that speed was of the essence. However, if historians draw any lessons from this experience, they will surely come to the view that we may have something to learn from the experiences typical in continental Europe, where coalitions are negotiated over weeks, or even months.

Agreements reached in a matter of a few short days, however comprehensive they seek to be, cannot by definition possibly take account of every twist or turn that current affairs or political life will take in the five years that follow. There are, of course, “Events, dear boy, events.” Governments will have to take a position on issues that they had not anticipated at the start of a five-year term; that is inevitable. Collective responsibility, in the sense in which we have understood it, can exist only where there is a collective view, a collective agreement and a collective decision between the two parts of the coalition that they will proceed in a certain way. Where something breaks down or has not been anticipated, or something new arises on which the two parties are unable to reach agreement, it is inevitable that we will not be able to apply a traditional doctrine of collective ministerial responsibility. We should not fret about that or worry ourselves unduly about it.

Transparency has been mentioned. On the point that the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) made with reference to Northern Ireland, when there are two parties in a coalition, the world can see, recognise and understand that there are differences of view because there are different underlying philosophies. That is healthy and transparent. In Labour’s years in office, there was the running soap opera of the view in No. 10 and the view in No. 11 Downing street. I should have thought that the differences of view between the wings of that Government were every bit as large as those within the coalition, but there was no transparency there—nobody could really see or understand the debates. We relied on the columns of Mr Andrew Rawnsley and others, who provided us with a running commentary on what they thought was going on. It is far more transparent when two parties with acknowledged differences are conducting a debate. There will always be occasions when the two parties are not able to reach an agreement. Therefore, inevitably, the doctrine of ministerial responsibility cannot be applied.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend has enunciated a perfectly reasonable proposition, but unfortunately it does not fit in with the express provisions of the ministerial code, which was revised immediately after the general election to take account of the coalition. Why is he enunciating a proposition that is not reflected in the exact words of the ministerial code?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I am not saying that the ministerial code is perfect in every detail—I do not think for one moment that it is—but I am not entirely sure that it is as deficient or inapplicable in the circumstances that I have been describing as the hon. Gentleman suggests. He said that the responsibility is very much at the top, with the Prime Minister carrying the responsibility for the way that the collective ministerial responsibility provision operates. That is quite correct.

During my short spell in government, I was surprised at the extent to which more or less all Government business seemed to be escalated to No. 10 and the Cabinet Office, and seemed to be resolved on the desks of the Prime Minister and, in most cases, the Deputy Prime Minister. If we recall the provisions of the coalition agreement at the outset, they were that documents passing the Prime Minister’s desk were also to pass the desk of the Deputy Prime Minister.

The hon. Gentleman’s assertion that responsibility for setting aside the ministerial code, where it is set aside, lies with the Prime Minister is basically correct. Given the way the Government conduct their business, things seem to end up either in a one-to-one negotiation between the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister or in the quad—the quadrilateral meeting that brings into play the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It is at the absolute top that the conclusion has to be drawn that agreement cannot be reached on a particular matter.

Effectively, responsibility for setting aside the collective responsibility provision lies with the Prime Minister. He faces a choice. He must decide, in discussion with the Deputy Prime Minister, whether there is a collective view on the subject matter at hand. If there is not, he must conclude whether that is so serious and fatal to the ongoing continuity of the coalition that—this is precisely the choice that the hon. Members for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), and for Christchurch, hypothesised about—the coalition must be ended, or whether it is just a tiresome irritant that will have to be taken on the chin, with the overriding work of the coalition continuing, regardless. It is always open to the Prime Minister to arrive at that judgment.

I completely understand that some Conservative Back Benchers are not great enthusiasts for the coalition, but I should not have thought that a day when the opinion polls showed Labour at 41% and the Conservatives at 29% was quite the optimal moment to aspire to an early general election.

I urge the hon. Members for Christchurch, and for New Forest East, to have a jolly good look at the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, because it simply is not the case that ending the coalition, and the Government ceasing to be able to hold their own in a vote of confidence, results in a general election; it would have done previously, but, now that the Act has been passed, bringing about a general election is a very different proposition altogether. The removal of the Government requires a simple majority, but the early dissolution of Parliament requires a two-thirds majority in the House of Commons. Numerically, that can be achieved only if, on the same day, the Conservative and Labour parties feel they have an interest in an early general election.

As a mental exercise, I often try to think of the circumstances in which the Conservatives and the Labour party could both, at exactly the same moment, think it was in their interests to have an early election. Even in the entirely improbable situation that the Liberal Democrat vote had seemingly evaporated to nothing, I cannot see why the Conservatives and the Labour party would both think, at the same time, that it was in their interests to have an early election, so I have concluded that an early election is very improbable indeed.

The alternative to a Conservative minority Government is simply a Labour minority Government, which might appeal to the hon. Member for Christchurch as being quite helpful in the long term. However, an early election is simply not on offer with the ease that hon. Members believe it is.

We have a coalition, which brings together two parties. Where they can agree, we have collective responsibility; where they cannot, we have a free vote—that is, in effect, what happens when collective responsibility is set aside. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat Whips might then attempt a whipping operation to get the two parts of the coalition to vote in line with a party view, but, in Government terms, there is simply a free vote, which is what has happened on the occasions that have been cited.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Smith]

I would be only too delighted to engage in that discussion with my hon. Friend, but as he knows, I no longer practise the dark arts carried out by what are known as the usual channels. I regret that I would not be able to do that decision justice; nor could I report back to those who make those decisions, if I even tried.

On the ministerial code, it is important to note that there is clear precedent, as has been said several times today, for suspending collective ministerial responsibility on specific issues, when the Government of the day decide that it is appropriate. A notable example, which we have discussed, is Harold Wilson’s decision on whether the UK should continue to be a member of the European Economic Community. He allowed members of his Cabinet to speak and campaign on both sides.

Let me offer the Chamber a few other historical examples. Shortly after the formation of the national Government in 1931, an “agreement to differ” was agreed. The terms of that were published in The Times in January 1932, and in February that year, the Home Secretary began a speech by commenting on the doctrine of collective responsibility:

“The House will have an opportunity…of discussing fully the departure from the doctrine of collective responsibility which is marked by my appearance at this Box this afternoon”—[Official Report, 4 February 1932; Vol. 261, c. 316.]

It is also helpful to note that in 1977, James Callaghan, the then Prime Minister, said:

“I certainly think that the doctrine should apply, except in cases where I announce that it does not.”—[Official Report, 16 June 1977; Vol. 933, c. 552.]

That demonstrates that the terms, duration and enforcement of the arrangement are ultimately a matter for the Prime Minister.

It is most important to add that the current Government have decided to set collective responsibility aside on some specific occasions. That is a fact of life in a coalition, and it shows how our constitutional practice can evolve to suit new situations.

[Mr Chope]

The Minister is talking a lot about the history, but can she explain why the Prime Minister was unable to give me a straight answer to my question, asking why he set aside collective ministerial responsibility in respect of the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, and on what date that decision was taken? Why could the Prime Minister not let me have a straight answer on that?

[Miss Smith]

I wanted to go on to say, in addressing what I took to be my hon. Friend’s central point—accountability for the decision, when taken, to set aside collective ministerial responsibility—that the key is that Parliament certainly ought to be informed in a way that is appropriate to the instance in hand. I will not comment on whether the Prime Minister did or did not do that for the hon. Gentleman in parliamentary questions, but in the instance of the Lords amendments to the ERA Bill, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House of Commons made such a statement to the House, explaining why he was speaking and how it was that collective responsibility had been set aside. I believe that the explanation has been offered in cases where such a departure has been outlined, and I think that that provides the kind of transparency and accountability that we are all seeking in this important area.

In conclusion, I note that the coalition agreement, in so far as it relates to the debate, sets out specific areas where the normal rule is not expected to apply. The citizens whom we all serve have had the chance to observe that in advance, and so hold us to account. Through that, there is no undermining of the coalition’s shared commitment to reducing the deficit and delivering a radical programme of reform that gets Britain back on track, after the catastrophic position in which it was left in 2010.

It has been possible in my short remarks to address only the notion of accountability for such decisions, but I want to finish by saying that it is vital that we are not distracted from our core task in Government at this time, which is to put right the mess that the Labour party made of Britain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the Commission on a Bill of Rights reported to me and the Secretary of State for Justice. Actually, quite a lot of good work was done on the reform of the European Court of Human rights—the so-called Brighton agenda, which we are pursuing across the coalition.

However, the right hon. Gentleman is right to acknowledge that there is a difference of opinion between those of us who believe that the basic rights and responsibilities offered to every British citizen in the European convention, as reflected in British law in the Human Rights Act, should be a baseline of protection for everybody, and others who wish to see that changed. That disagreement was openly, and in a perfectly grown-up way, reflected in the conclusions of the commission.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend make it a priority to introduce transparency into collective ministerial responsibility, which seems to be being set aside without any proper accountability to the public or the House?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman and I have discussed before, collective responsibility prevails where there is a collective agreement and a collective decision on which collective responsibility is based. It is not easy, and certainly not possible to enforce collective responsibility in the absence of a collective decision taken first.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Attorney-General]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s message. The view that I express is the view of the United Kingdom Government, and it is backed up by the advice of Professor Crawford and Professor Boyle. The overwhelming weight of international precedent is that, in the event of independence, the remainder of the UK would continue to exercise its international rights and obligations, and that Scotland would form a new state. In those circumstances, Scotland would have to apply to join the European Union.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

But is there not an alternative legal viewpoint, which is that if Scotland were to leave the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom without Scotland would itself have to reapply for membership of the European Union?

European Council

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, this shows that we should have a very clear bottom line and set of objectives that we want to achieve, and that we must work very closely with partners and allies to try to build up our arguments and alliances. That is what we have done over the single market, where a huge number of countries are backing our view. That is what we are doing over the EU trade deals—I hope we can make further progress on those—and that is also what we must do with our EU reform package.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

May I thank my right hon. Friend for having listened to the House on this issue, and congratulate him on his good judgment in not taking the Deputy Prime Minister with him to negotiate? May I ask him to build on his success by organising an independent audit of the costs and benefits of our membership of the European Union?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his support on this issue. As for the costs and benefits of membership, I think the balance of competences review that will be carried out by the Foreign Office will give everyone the opportunity to make their points about which areas of European endeavour are in our interest and which are not. We should allow that debate to take place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

As the hon. Gentleman ought to know, the Office for National Statistics is a non-ministerial Government department, which has statutory independence from Ministers.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

T10. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the Cabinet Office keeps a proper record of all the circumstances in which collective ministerial responsibility is set aside, so that we can have some transparency in relation to that process?

[Mr Maude]

I will ensure that the records are meticulously kept.

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 6 February.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Mr Chope]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. I have given him notice of my question, which he may find particularly useful in the sense that it is fair and transparent and also very modern. In response to the many concerns expressed in yesterday’s debate, will he ensure that civil partnerships are open to heterosexual couples on an equal basis with homosexual couples?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me notice of his question. I will obviously listen carefully to what he says, but frankly I am a marriage man. I am a great supporter of marriage. I want to promote marriage, defend marriage, encourage marriage, and the great thing about last night’s vote is that two gay people who love each other will now be able to get married. That is an important advance. We should be promoting marriage, rather than looking at any other way of weakening it.

Commercial Lobbyists (Registration and Code of Conduct) Bill

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Friday 1st February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. If he will bear with me for a couple of moments, I will explain exactly how the Bill makes the distinction, and again I would commend to him the PASC report, which talks about that very issue.

A high-profile Bill on equal marriage is coming before the House next Tuesday. Like many Members on both sides of the House, I have received a number of letters from constituents and organisations about it. I will take one example. If my local parish priest were to write to me, either as a constituent or on behalf of his congregation, expressing a view either way, he would not be captured by this definition, because he would not be getting paid to undertake that activity. It would be in addition to his remunerated post. If, however, the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Roman Catholic Church or any other Church were to employ a public affairs officer to draft a letter or organise meetings, he or she would clearly be getting paid to organise, either directly or as an adviser, that lobbying activity.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

rose—

[Thomas Docherty]

I have a delightful choice. I will give way to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) first.

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for trying to explain the distinction. I will give him another example. The noble Lord Mandelson is in receipt of a European Union pension and as a former commissioner is under an obligation to campaign for the EU. He has recently started a lobbying campaign against the UK leaving the EU. Is that commercial lobbying? It is certainly driven by the noble Lord’s financial interest as a former EU commissioner. Should that be registered as well?

[Thomas Docherty]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that example. He will see that we talk about peers in later clauses. With his indulgence, I would like to return later to the issue of peers undertaking lobbying activities later. On the principle, however, if we were to leave the European Union, the pension of the Deputy Prime Minister, for example, as a former euro civil servant, would not be affected. In the same way, that consideration would probably not apply in the case that the hon. Gentleman raises.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

There is already a voluntary code for the Association of Professional Political Consultants and for the UK Public Affairs Council, and I understand that a number of countries around the world have codes of conduct. Perhaps it will be helpful if I write to the hon. Gentleman after this short debate, sending him a full list. He raises the valid point that this is not a ground-breaking revolutionary idea.

[Mr Chope]

How would the provisions of the hon. Gentleman’s Bill apply to lobbying organisations based outside the United Kingdom?

[Thomas Docherty]

That is a valid question. I am nervous about answering, however, because I fear we might end up in a cul-de-sac. Under the current European rules, the employees of companies who operate in the UK would be open to sanctions, even if the company is not based in the UK. I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not getting drawn further into that cul-de-sac today, however.

One of the reasons why I am so passionate about the need for statutory regulation is that voluntary regulation has not worked. Let me give an example of poor behaviour, which I hope will illustrate why it has not worked. One could see it coming a mile off. The vast majority of individuals and organisations involved in public policy lobbying, particularly of Parliament, are credible and honourable, have strongly held views and enjoy the political process. It would be better if there were more people who were interested in the political process.

Let me take as an example the Bill before the House next Tuesday—the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. There has been a good and lively debate, with representations overwhelmingly made by individuals and organisations in sensible and moderate terms. I know that many colleagues would agree that the language in that debate has been much more appropriate than many of us feared it would be, and the people lobbying on both sides of the debate have conducted themselves in the way that I think we would all want to see. There are, however, some individuals who do not conduct themselves in an appropriate way. I want to talk about one individual and one company of whom I have some knowledge—a company called Invicta Public Affairs and an individual called Mr Mark Cummings.

I first knew Mr Cummings because he was head of the office of the public affairs company where I started working in 2007, so he was technically the chap who hired me to come and work at that company. Mr Cummings left the company about five weeks later under rather a large cloud, partly because it was discovered that he was trying to set up his own business, which is a perfectly legitimate thing for someone to do, and partly because it was becoming apparent that he believed that lobbying should be conducted in a way that perhaps was not appropriate for a company with a long-standing ethos, such as the company I worked for. Let me give the House a couple of examples.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Miss Smith]

It is the Government’s intention to proceed with the individual electoral registration programme, which will increase and improve the accuracy of the registers we work with. It is really important that we all continue with the support that there is across the House for those proposals.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Can my hon. Friend guarantee that the next general election will be fought according to the new parliamentary boundaries recommended by the Electoral Commission, and that it will be fought with individual voter registration?

[Miss Smith]

I think that the answer to my hon. Friend is best given within the point that there will be a vote on those proposals, as I think he knows. On individual electoral registration, I can confirm that the programme is proceeding as planned, and I am happy to give him further details on that.

Votes for 16 and 17-year-olds

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Wayne David]

For me, the bottom line is that, if a young person aged 16 can give full consent to medical treatment, leave school and enter work or training, pay income tax and national insurance, obtain tax credits and welfare benefits in their own right, consent to sexual relationships, get married or enter a civil partnership, change their name by deed poll—

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions must be brief.

[Wayne David]

I am just coming to the end. They may also join the armed forces and become a company director. Surely, if all those things apply, logically, why should voting be exempt?

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

Again, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that his party did nothing about this when in government. We will take one lesson from his Government: rushing forward with ill-considered legislation that then is not brought into force or which goes wrong when it is introduced and then has to be revisited is not a good way of legislating. We have published a number of Bills in draft so far, in the first Session of this Parliament, including the one dealing with electoral registration. That is a good way of legislating and it is generally supported across this House. It is better to get it right and do it well, rather than rush it and make a bodge of it.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

What is my hon. Friend doing to regulate that most destructive form of lobbying—that which comes from Liberal Democrat Back Benchers and is designed to undermine the economic recovery by arguing against the regionalisation of public sector pay and against the Beecroft report?

[Mr Harper]

Speaking for myself, I enjoy being lobbied by Back Benchers of all descriptions, be they Members from the Government parties or Opposition Members. I am very happy to listen to views. The Government will then move forward with their proposals on lobbying, based on the evidence and on the responses to our consultation.

Informal European Council

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We have to plan for all eventualities, but I would make two points. As I have said, I think we have to respect the fact that the countries of the eurozone want to make it work. They have taken quite a number of steps that are painful and difficult for individual sovereign countries to take, and it must be in our interests, because we want the European economy to grow, for them at least to take the short-term measures to take the heat out of the crisis. There were some signs of the crisis easing at the beginning of this year, as Italian and other bond spreads have come down, but we are far from through it.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend expand on the basis on which we were able to find common cause with our good friends in the Czech Republic?

[The Prime Minister]

The point came when different countries had to decide whether they wanted to sign up to the treaty or not; it is not a treaty within the EU, so there is no compulsion to do so. The Czechs, on 9 December, were not sure whether they wanted to sign it. They then considered whether they wanted to, and last night they decided what to do, as everyone had to; the only person who cannot seem to make a decision is the leader of the Labour party, who has no idea whether he is against it, in favour of it, or does not know. One day, he will have to decide.