Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill
Christopher Chope Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Harper
While we are discussing these amendments on Report, I will limit my remarks, or else I think Mr Deputy Speaker will call me out of order. The issues are indeed complex. There is a limited range of solutions, and they are well known, but we must make sure that we have thought through the consequences, particularly pertaining to how this House operates. That is why the Government will set up a commission to look into these issues. Perhaps on Third Reading, Mr Deputy Speaker will allow me to say a little more about that, and allow Members to ask questions about the written ministerial statement I tabled yesterday.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
The Minister refers to this being very complex. Why, therefore, did the Government not set up this commission a year ago? Will he apologise to the House for the fact that the Government did not set it up a year ago, and will he confirm that the reason why it was not set up was because it was blocked by the Liberal Democrats?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. As Mr Chope should know, we must keep our powder dry on that point until Third Reading. I ask the Minister not to be tempted.
Volunteering Bill
Christopher Chope Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
As several hon. Members will know, this is volunteering week, so I am delighted that we have the chance to discuss this important issue. Given the interest of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) in European matters, he will like to know that 2011 is the European year of volunteering. There is therefore a lot to celebrate about volunteering.
This simple Bill is designed to meet the concerns that have been expressed right across the House, and by no less a person than the Prime Minister, about the need to reduce the red tape and bureaucracy surrounding people’s ability to get access to volunteering. In preparing the Bill, I have been much assisted by working with the organisation WorldWide Volunteering, which is based in Somerset. Its chairman is John Dunford, whom many people may know as a former general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. WorldWide Volunteering is a national charity founded in 1994 which provides tailored services to inform, inspire and make it easy for people from all walks of life to volunteer. It has control over the United Kingdom’s most comprehensive and easy-to-use online database of volunteering opportunities, which offers over 1.6 million opportunities per year from over 2,500 different charities, and it provides a flow of much-needed volunteers to those charities at no cost to either party. It works in partnership with charities to achieve the best outcomes. It also works, to a great extent, within our schools.
WorldWide Volunteering has a number of people working for it whose job is to go out into schools—often schools that are not in the most privileged neighbourhoods of the country—to try to encourage youngsters to come forward as volunteers. One of those people said to me that it is sometimes difficult enough, in the sort of schools that she is going into, to get young people enthused about volunteering, but if one succeeds in doing so, they will probably, being young and impetuous, want to indulge in that volunteering sooner rather than later. They do not want to have to hang around for a lot of bureaucratic hurdles to be jumped before they can start what they have decided to do.
This week there has been a brilliant series of articles in London’s Evening Standard about volunteering to help with reading. The initiative was inspired by royal patronage. It is supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury and, notwithstanding that, by many of the newspaper’s readers. The articles asked why people do not get out there, go into schools and provide reading help to the disappointingly large proportion of youngsters who seem unable to read aloud and have not had that experience. What disturbed me was the emphasis placed on the requirements for doing this. One of the requirements was that the body organising it should interview the potential volunteers; there is no problem about that at all. Another requirement was that each person who wanted to engage in volunteering had to have a criminal record check. Why did they need a criminal record check? That seems quite unreasonable.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an eloquent point, which he started to make in connection with young people. Many of my constituents reach the volunteering stage of their life in retirement, at the end of a full working life. A number of them have contacted me to make this exact point about volunteering in retirement. They say, “Mr Freeman, I have built a business, had a family and lived in my community. Why should I be assumed to be a criminal? Could we not have a simple way for my bona fides to be established in a single certificate that applies to all my volunteering activities in the community?”
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. My Bill is designed to find such a simple solution. Clause 1 would establish a fit and proper person certificate. If an organisation or individual wanted to take on a volunteer, instead of having to get a criminal record check, they would be able to accept a declaration from the volunteer that they do not have a criminal record or any convictions. In the case of somebody under the age of 18, such a statement would have to be countersigned by a parent or guardian. Such a statement would, by definition, be up to date. A person could provide one this week to volunteer for reading in London and another next week to work with a diving company or the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Criminal record checks do not necessarily identify someone who is weird at all, but just whether someone has a criminal record. Most of the people who wish to do harm are well under the radar because no one knows about them until suddenly they do something. I absolutely agree that criminal record checks are totally inappropriate in volunteering. We must get rid of this red tape so that people who want to help young people, for example, can do so almost instantly.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a good point. People want to be able to get on with volunteering very quickly and with the minimum bureaucracy. Even if there are criminal record checks, what does that prove?
In the last week, there was the most horrific account in one of the national newspapers of a worker at a nursery who filmed the rape of a toddler and was involved in countless other ghastly offences. The nursery had been inspected by Ofsted some five weeks before the individual was arrested. The inspection concluded that the nursery offered a “safe and secure” environment for children, with
“appropriate recruiting and vetting procedures”
for staff. When challenged about what had happened, the spokesman for Ofsted said, I thought rather wisely:
“Inspection can only ever provide a snapshot of a nursery on the day of inspection.”
It can provide only a snapshot of what the inspector is shown or sees. The spokesman emphasised:
“It is the nursery’s responsibility to ensure it takes the necessary action to keep children safe and well looked after.”
My Bill would give that responsibility fairly and squarely to the people who recruit and supervise the volunteers.
George Freeman
Does my hon. Friend agree that in framing legislation to promote volunteering—I note that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), who is responsible for the big society, is on the Front Bench—it is important that we embody notions of trust and responsibility in the culture of the revolution that we seek to trigger? Otherwise we are in danger of legislating for distrust.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I will explain to hon. Members why it is necessary to face the Chair. The rule of the House is that when the Speaker or Deputy Speaker is on his or her feet, no other Member will stand. If a Member has their back to me, they will not see whether I am standing. It has been some time now—let us try to ensure we get it right.
Mr Chope
Perhaps it is my fault, Madam Deputy Speaker, for sitting right at the back so that others have to turn around. Nevertheless, I am grateful for the interest that the debate is generating among my hon. Friends.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to emphasise the importance of responsibility. The Minister for Equalities, who has been dealing with the Protection of Freedoms Bill in Committee, has made it clear on a number of occasions that the ticking of boxes cannot be a substitute for people taking responsibility for their charges or for volunteers who should be under their supervision and control, and whom they are responsible for recruiting.
Why have we suddenly got into the situation whereby it is thought necessary to have a Criminal Records Bureau check for tens or hundreds of thousands of volunteers? I examined the coalition agreement after the general election and saw that we were promised the Protection of Freedoms Bill. That has now come forward, but I am not sure that it goes far enough in introducing simplicity and common sense. There is a lot of talk about common sense and, indeed, “A Common Sense Approach” is the title of the report carried out for the Government by Sunita Mason, the independent adviser for criminality information management, on the impact of the vetting and barring system on volunteering and other activity. She recognised that there was far too heavy a hand in relation to all this, but I am not sure that the solutions that the Government have come up with in their Bill are not still unnecessarily complex.
We know that 95% of people who have CRB checks are cleared. An individual knows whether they have a criminal record, so they should be quite capable of signing a declaration of whether they do. If they do not, and they sign a declaration to that effect, on the face of it that should be sufficient evidence that they are a fit and proper person to engage in volunteering activity.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
I totally agree with the sentiment that my hon. Friend is outlining, but I very much hope that his Bill will also explain how volunteers can navigate through all the health and safety red tape that has been put into place over the past 13 years. A lot of people in my constituency are put off voluntary work because of the inordinate amount of health and safety regulation and the tick-box mentality that they have to go through in order to volunteer.
Mr Chope
The subject that we are discussing at the moment is the need for people to get a criminal record check before they can even have their application considered, and that is one of the biggest deterrents to volunteering. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has had the chance to read the text of my Bill, but my approach to Friday Bills has always been, as far as possible, to keep them simple. Like most of my Bills, this one is on one side of paper. It basically proposes the fit and proper person certificate as a substitute for a CRB check, which takes time—many weeks—and costs money. The price has gone up to £44, and somebody must pay for that.
George Freeman
I am very grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, for this third opportunity to intervene correctly. I will not take my eyes off you, which is my gain and my hon. Friend’s loss.
Does my hon. Friend think that volunteers for schemes such as the community car schemes in my constituency—a number of elderly volunteers help out in their community through such a scheme—should be subject to the CRB checks to which they are currently subjected? A number of people in my constituency have contacted me to say that they have taken part in volunteering activity all their lives, and that they resent, at this late stage, being required to prove that they are not criminals. What does he make of that situation?
Mr Chope
I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. I must congratulate the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on raising from 40p to 45p the allowance for volunteer drivers, and also on including the 5p per passenger addition, which means that someone can claim 50p per mile for taking one person to or from hospital and 55p per mile for taking two people. That is an important and useful initiative, but I am not sure—I hope the Minister will have a chance to respond to this point—that under the current law, such volunteers need a CRB check. It is absolute madness if they do.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
Here’s looking at you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Without wishing to give the House the impression that I am a great proponent of pettifogging CRB checks, may I ask my hon. Friend about his proposed declaration certificate? How should somebody who signs such a certificate erroneously be sanctioned, because if there is no sanction, surely there is no point in those certificates?
Mr Chope
I am not sure that that is correct, because obviously, making a false statement is potentially an offence. However, my hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to tell the House where I got the idea of the fit and proper person certificate from. I got the idea from none other than Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. You will know about this, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you perhaps invented it when you were a distinguished Treasury Minister.
HMRC decided that people who run or who are trustees of small charities might run off with the funds or take advantage of charitable exemptions under tax law. It therefore introduced a fit and proper persons test and declaration for people who run charities. The test applies essentially to managers, trustees of charities, directors of corporate charities and so on. In a typical smaller local charity, a manager, for the purposes of the fit and proper persons test, could include the chairperson, the treasurer, the secretary or someone on the management committee who has control over expenditure.
The HMRC leaflet on the test states:
“The ‘fit and proper persons’ test exists to ensure that charities,”
community interest associations
“and other organisations entitled to charity tax reliefs are not managed or controlled by individuals who might misuse the valuable tax reliefs the organisation receives. Unfortunately fraudsters have been known to exploit charity tax reliefs so the fit and proper persons test exists to help prevent that”.
What does ‘fit and proper’ mean?
“An individual is ‘fit and proper’ if they ensure that charity funds and tax reliefs are used only for charitable purposes.”
What must a person do to satisfy HMRC that they are a fit and proper person? The guidance states that they must sign a declaration that sets out the name of the organisation, the name of the individual and their role in the organisation. The person must declare that they are not disqualified from acting as a charity trustee; have not been convicted of an offence involving deception or dishonesty; have not been involved in tax fraud; are not an undischarged bankrupt; have not made compositions or arrangements with creditors from which they have not been discharged; have not been removed from serving as a charity trustee in the past; and that they have not been disqualified from serving as a company director. They must also assert that at all times they will seek to ensure that the charity’s funds and tax reliefs are used only for charitable purposes. So that is all right for managers of charities handling probably quite substantial sums of money. The Treasury is saying, “We will take these statements on trust”. If we are to have a responsible society, we have to trust people. People say, “Well, what happens if the person turns out to be a rogue?” Exactly the same thing would happen as happened in the ghastly Plymouth day nursery case or in the case I cited earlier: the person would be brought to justice, although probably not until after a lot of damage had been done.
However many controls and regulations we bring in, we cannot pre-empt the activities of fraudsters, villains, inherent, compulsive liars, paedophiles or whoever. We have to be proportional and say, “What is the benefit of having CRB checks, bearing in mind that they do not prevent somebody who clears one from subsequently going off the rails?” What would be the benefit of not having those checks and having a much simpler system? My Bill, which adopts a simple system rather along the lines of the fit and proper person test for charity trustees, would meet the principle of proportionality. It deals only with volunteers. We are not talking about people engaged in full-time or part-time employment; we are talking about volunteers and people who, by their very nature, want to make a difference and add something to the equation. It is important for society not to deter, but to encourage those volunteers to come forward, so by removing the need for CRB checks, and making it nice and simple and easy, we will promote volunteering, which is the whole purpose of the Bill and volunteering week.
Bob Stewart
I resent that remark from the hon. Gentleman. I hope that this sort of red tape will stop.
Mr Chope
I am grateful once again for my hon. Friend’s support.
The Bill would reduce bureaucracy and costs, and promote volunteering. If for some reason—I am sure there may be all sorts of technical reasons—my hon. Friend the Minister cannot accept the Bill, perhaps because it is inadequately drafted, it would be possible to introduce new clauses on Report of the Protection of Freedoms Bill to deal adequately with these concerns. The Government have—this is the substance of my remarks—made some welcome statements pointing in the right direction of reducing the burden of bureaucracy, and have said on a number of occasions that they do not want people who volunteer to be viewed as suspects until proved otherwise, and that they want to encourage as much volunteering as possible.
Clause 2 makes some technical changes to ensure that those under 21 would not have to get criminal records checks in any circumstances and that the Police Act 1997 would not apply to volunteers, but only to paid employees.
Having said all that, and being grateful to all my hon. Friends who have shown support for the Bill, I move that it receive its Second Reading.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Let me say to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) that, just because in some cases people fall through the current safety net, it is not rational to argue that we should get rid of the safeguards altogether. However, I shall also challenge some of the premises underpinning the Bill.
Members from all parts of the House will know from their constituencies just how fantastic and inspirational the work of volunteers is. Whether in a local homework club, at a homeless shelter or in a voluntary group that encourages reskilling and training, volunteers add an immeasurable amount to our neighbourhoods and communities. I am personally greatly encouraged by their enthusiasm and energy. For that reason and a host of others, it is vital to encourage people to become involved in their communities and take up voluntary work whenever and wherever they can. To that extent, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Recent research shows that 54% of people volunteered informally at least once in the last year, with 29% volunteering informally at least once a month.
However, there is not only a social and ethical case for volunteering and encouraging it in the community; there is a serious economic case for it. Volunteering not only helps the voluntary group concerned, but creates a greater sense of community life and a more cohesive social fabric, and it is a fundamental part of living in a better society. However, volunteers need to be supported, trained and managed. It is wholly unclear how the Bill’s proposal for a system of fit and proper person certificates would work. The Bill does not say who would run it. Perhaps most importantly, there is a serious danger that such a system would undermine the current safeguards, putting extremely vulnerable people at risk. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman’s intention may be to encourage people to volunteer, but this Bill has neither the capacity nor the ability to do that; indeed, it actually introduces a serious element of risk into the system. I am afraid that the Bill gives no serious consideration to the issue of safeguarding vulnerable people, creating a huge danger that it will put people at risk.
Mr Chope
The hon. Lady seems to be incredibly negative about the Bill, but can she answer this question? My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile)—he apologises that he cannot be here for this debate—told me yesterday that he had to have a CRB check to become a school governor. Surely that is unnecessary bureaucracy. Why does he need a CRB check to become a school governor?
Roberta Blackman-Woods
I can indeed answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, because I am a school governor and have just completed a CRB check myself. It was amazingly straightforward, and I understand absolutely why one was carried out: because we want to ensure, as far as that is possible, that people working with or alongside children have nothing in their past that would put those children at risk.
I want to talk about the reasons and motivations behind people becoming involved in volunteering, and what holds them back from doing so. In so doing, I shall challenge some of the hon. Gentleman’s assertions. There is a great deal of research into the reasons why people volunteer and what holds them back. Those reasons are multifarious in nature. The document “Why participate? Understanding what motivates people to get involved”, produced by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, presents an excellent picture of the reasons that people seek out voluntary work in their communities. The research suggests that the reasons are complex and diverse, and that they vary according to the personal, cultural, environmental and structural circumstances of the individual in question.
Similarly, in the Helping Out survey, volunteers reported a wide range of reasons for starting to volunteer. The most popular reason, given by 53% of those surveyed, was to improve things and help people. That was followed by two more reasons, each given by 41% of respondents. The first was that the cause was important to them; the second was that they had spare time. This research presents an interesting and complex picture. There are many other reasons for volunteering. In the survey, 30% of people said that they wanted to meet people and make friends; 29% said that there was a need in the community; 27% said that they wanted to use their existing skills; 19% said that they wanted to learn new skills. On and on it goes. There are lots of reasons for people volunteering.
Research carried out by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations also shows what prevents people from volunteering. It suggests that it is usually related to a lack of resources, and that there might be problems related to education or a lack of training, time or disposable income. The regulation involved is not, however, at the top of any list of barriers, and there is little evidence that that would be the primary reason that people might be put off.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
I shall talk about this issue from the charities’ point of view in just a moment.
Many people in the sector have written about what should be done to encourage more people to volunteer.
Mr Chope
Is the shadow Minister saying that she completely disputes the evidence that I adduced from WorldWide Volunteering? It shows that there are real difficulties in encouraging young people from schools to volunteer in deprived areas because the present procedures prevent them from translating their enthusiasm into an immediate act of volunteering and make them wait many weeks to be approved.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
I am querying whether that is the major disincentive. I have already been through the list of other barriers that affect the group of people that the hon. Gentleman describes. What I am suggesting is that regulation might not be the primary barrier. Indeed, across the sector, a great deal of information and research backs up my point.
What, then, do we know from the sector about how to promote volunteering and remove barriers? Paul Emery, head of community and social organisations at Zurich tells us:
“Choose a cause that people really care about. Our research shows that people do want to volunteer and take on more in the places they live, but they don’t want to be used as a resource to replace public services.”
That is something that we have not heard much about in the debate so far. He also stressed the importance of people being able to
“show communities what they can do”,
for which they need to acquire additional skills. It is necessary to keep people informed and to work with local authorities and other local bodies to do so.
Similarly, Brian Carr, chief executive of the Centre for Voluntary Action says that it is really important to offer people opportunities and that it is necessary to “build volunteers’ confidence”. For him, one of the biggest barriers to volunteering was not regulation, but “lack of confidence”, which is
“exacerbated for individuals who’ve experienced exclusion in other areas of life.”
It is essential that volunteering opportunities provide the necessary support and that there are procedures in place to boost mental health—if necessary—employability and self-esteem. It is therefore essential to increase the support available in organisations.
David Hopkins, the national programme manager at Catch 22, says it is absolutely essential if we are to get people volunteering to promote a strong support network. As he says, people do not want to
“undertake social action in glorious isolation”.
They want to be “supported by like-minded individuals”.
In a similar vein, Alison Blackwood, head of policy at the London Voluntary Service Council, says that it is important to design specific programmes for volunteers:
“There is evidence from Greater London Volunteering that volunteer centres are better at engaging people who don’t normally volunteer or who are at risk of social exclusion.”
She then mentions some Government suggestions that might undermine the very volunteering centres that are necessary to support our volunteers. It is of great significance that she, as someone who supports a large number of small voluntary organisations, says that
“Time not bureaucracy is the problem”,
and that the
“red tape barrier is a bit of a red herring: as the top barrier to not getting involved, 82% of those surveyed… stated it was lack of spare time—
and not regulation—that was “the main barrier” to involvement in the local community and taking up whatever volunteering opportunities might be available.
Before I move on to clarify what should be done, it is worth setting out the legislative context of the Bill. We should remember that the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 was enacted in response to the inquiry following the Soham murders. It established a vetting and barring scheme for those who wished to undertake the two types of regulated activities that are controlled. I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Christchurch mention that the entire legislative context is now being reviewed by the Government under legislation currently going through the House. I am somewhat surprised that the Bill was not framed more exactly in terms of, first, the Protection of Freedoms Bill that is currently going through the House, and secondly—and perhaps more significantly in this context—the taskforce established by the Government to consider how to cut red tape for small charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. I do not necessarily agree with the proposals in the Protection of Freedoms Bill or from the taskforce, but nevertheless I would have thought that the Bill would refer specifically to them.
I start with the relevant proposals under the Protection of Freedoms Bill, which seeks to merge the Criminal Records Bureau and the Independent Safeguarding Authority to form a streamlined new body. The Bill, it is said, is proportionate in terms of barring and the criminal records checking service; it will bring about a large reduction in the number of positions requiring checks, so that only those working closely and regularly with children and vulnerable adults will need CRB checks; there will be portability of criminal records checks between jobs to cut down bureaucracy; there will be an end to a requirement for those working or volunteering with vulnerable groups to register with the vetting and barring scheme and then to be monitored; and it will stop employers knowingly requesting criminal records checks on individuals who are not liable for to them.
It seems, therefore, that the Bill currently going through the parliamentary system goes some way towards addressing the issues that the hon. Member for Christchurch has raised today. That is acknowledged, to some extent, by voluntary sector organisations. For example, Volunteering England has said that it welcomes the broad proposals to revise the safeguarding systems announced as part of the Protection of Freedoms Bill. It says that the portability of criminal record checks would be widely seen by volunteers and volunteering organisations as helpful, and that the lower level of involvement for people and roles will also reduce a significant barrier to volunteering. Today’s announcement is beneficial for the volunteering movement.
However, Volunteering England also expresses some concerns. Justin Davis Smith, its chief executive, has said directly in response to the Volunteering Bill:
“Whilst we welcome the move to reduce the red tape surrounding volunteering, we do not believe the proposals in Mr Chope’s private member’s bill are the answer. Safeguarding is an important issue, and we hope that reforms to the current CRB system within the Protection of Freedoms Bill will strike the appropriate balance—ensuring vulnerable people are protected whilst making sure volunteers aren’t put off.”
Interestingly, he also mentions the deregulation taskforce, to which I will refer in a moment:
“Volunteering England has worked with Lord Hodgson’s De-Regulation Taskforce to identify the barriers to volunteering and how we can work together to overcome them. Our campaign to Free Volunteering from Red Tape is underway”,
and he says that Volunteering England will continue to do all that it can to support the taskforce.
We have the first report from the taskforce, entitled, “Unshackling Good Neighbours”. It is interesting that, after taking extensive evidence from the sector, including large and small charitable organisations, and interviewing many people across the voluntary and community sector, the taskforce does not find that red tape is the major barrier to volunteering, even though the taskforce was established to consider how to cut red tape for small charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises.In fact, fear of litigation is at the top of the list. The first answer to the report’s question, “What stops people giving time?” is “Risk of litigation”.
The report goes on to make some suggestions, referring to “Commissioning”, “Withdrawal of Cheques”, “The Role of Local Government”, whether people are employed, whether there are training opportunities, and the role of the planning system. However, it neither mentions the bureaucracy that currently exists nor suggests any ways of getting rid of it. If the
“Report of the Task Force established to consider how to cut red tape for small charities”
does not refer to the requirement for CRB checks and for some regulation to protect vulnerable children and adults, why do the hon. Member for Christchurch and the supporters of his Bill think that it is the No. 1 disincentive and barrier?
The last Government had a strong record of developing and encouraging volunteering and voluntary groups. An estimated 778,000 people were employed in the voluntary and community sector in 2010, some 17% more than in 2004. As I said earlier, we know that a large number of adults volunteer formally at least once a month. If the number of volunteers is to continue to increase, which is what the Government want—it is part of their big society programme—the Government must support voluntary organisations so that they can not only give their volunteers a helping hand, but encourage those volunteers to do the same for other members of the community.
What is thought to be having a negative impact on volunteering opportunities is not lack of regulation but other factors, which are causing great concern. They may be to do with individuals, but they may also be to do with charities themselves. Many have commented. The Charity Commission, for instance, says that it faces a 33% real-terms spending cut over the next four financial years, and is worried about whether it will be able to perform its functions as it currently does. The Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations have developed a website referring to the amount of money being taken from the voluntary and community sector. People in the sector are saying that the real challenge is posed not by red tape, but by funding cuts and the money being taken out of voluntary organisations.
Another challenge is being presented by the fact that the whole landscape of training for volunteers is under review. Julie Wilkes, chief executive of Skills—Third Sector, has said:
“Charities have been holding their breath on staff cuts in the last quarter, waiting to hear if their contracts with government will be renewed. The next two quarters will be the real test of the state of the sector as they include the end of the financial year.”
As the House can see, there is clearly a danger that the Government’s public spending cuts of more than £3 billion to charities could drive many to the wall. The Government talked time and again about the transition fund for community and voluntary organisations, but that does not reach all charities and, in any case, is hugely oversubscribed. A number of organisations have been dealing with the impact of announcements made in the emergency Budget in June 2010. They were doing that and experiencing difficulties in advance of the most recent round of cuts. There is also a great deal of concern that, across the country, the impact of the cuts varies according to the area where the voluntary organisation is located. Analysis from NCVO shows that northern local authorities have been hit hardest by the reductions.
The organisation Skills—Third Sector, which as I said earlier is the strategic body for developing skills in charities, social enterprises and voluntary organisations, has said that good-quality training programmes, linked to standards where possible, are needed to encourage volunteering, and that as it is facing rising demands across the board, with less money available, it does not know whether it will be able to continue to deliver services.
I suggest to the hon. Member for Christchurch that in order to encourage volunteering, rather than imposing additional or alternative processes and requirements on those wishing to become involved he should engage with the organisations doing that work, which are facing difficulties in encouraging the retention and support of volunteers across the country.
Mr Chope
I cannot let the hon. Lady traduce my Bill by suggesting that it will create additional burdens for volunteers. It will eliminate the need for a mass of volunteers to get Criminal Records Bureau checks. Instead, they will be able to produce a certificate which they will simply sign and present to the voluntary organisation for which they want to work. It will reduce the burden on volunteers, thereby encouraging them.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
What I am suggesting to the hon. Gentleman is that his Bill does not address the real barriers to people volunteering in their communities, and that if he wants to address those barriers, he should persuade those on his Front Bench to put more money into the voluntary and community sector, or at least stop taking quite so much money out of the sector so quickly, leaving it unable to respond to the demands not only of its volunteers but of the communities that it seeks to represent.
To sum up, I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman, like all Members of the House, wants to encourage higher levels of volunteering, but the Bill does not do that. It presents something of a circular argument. It is not clear who, if anybody, would check the background of the people who signed the statement or what system would be in place to verify what they had stated, who would administer the certificate system, how long the so-called fit and proper person certificate would last, and whether it would need to be updated after a number of years. Given the questions still outstanding, I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that a rethink on the Bill is needed.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)
May I add my voice to those wishing the Duke of Edinburgh a very happy birthday today? May I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on his prodigious fertility in terms of private Members’ Bills in this Session, but also, in the case of this particular baby, on its characteristic simplicity in terms of its structure? The Government cannot support it, for reasons that I will go into in whatever detail I can in the time that we have, but it is, as the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) also took the opportunity to say, a welcome opportunity to recognise the astonishing contribution of millions of people in constituencies throughout the country who give time to help others, and those groups, such as WorldWide Volunteering, but there are many others, which help people to use that time and inspire and connect them with opportunities to help others. It is that generosity in that landscape of that ecosystem of civil society organisations that is one of the things that makes this country great, and we should absolutely recognise it.
It is also right regularly to be asking ourselves the question: what can we do to make it easier in 2011 in modern Britain, with all the pressures on people’s time and, at the moment, money, to get involved, to support each other, to help to create the changes that people want to see? It goes to the heart of how we build a stronger sense of community where people have more power and responsibility for their lives, their communities and the services they use—the absolute aspiration of the big society vision. When it comes to encouraging and supporting social action, which is the context of the Bill, it is clear that we need to do something. We are a generous country—the statistics show that clearly—but it is also clear that giving has flatlined and there are worrying signs of decline, not least in terms of the giving of time. We have a sense of this from our own constituencies and community associations, and the difficulties that they have in finding new people to come forward. The charity world is increasingly concerned. Some people say that we cannot change this, that it is as good as it can get, but we do not accept that decline is inevitable, and our research and consultation suggest that there are people and organisations who would like to do more and could do more, but too many things get in the way.
As the hon. Lady said, there is an issue around lack of time in 2011, or perception of lack of time for many people. Often people find it difficult and complicated. For too many, the experience of volunteering, given time, is not as rewarding as it could or should be. There is a lack of awareness of opportunities, or where to start looking. There is an issue around bureaucracy—I do disagree a little with the hon. Lady here—and there is an issue around the CRB. She tried to make a case about why Lord Hodgson ignored this issue. There is a simple explanation: he recognised that other reviews of vetting and barring and of the CRB regime were going on and he took a view, I think quite sensibly, that he needed to focus the efforts of a limited resource exercise on areas where he felt that he could add more value. But his report “Unshackling Good Neighbours”—I recommend it to all colleagues—is a dose of common sense, when common sense is needed.
There is an issue around the CRB checks. I remember going to talk at a forum in Westminster and a gentleman coming up to say that he had 80 people waiting to volunteer, but they were being frustrated and held back because of the time it was taking for their CRB checks to come through. As the hon. Lady knows, there is frustration out there with the lack of opportunities to carry CRB checks around the system—the portability issue.
That brings me to the Bill. There are reasons why we cannot support it, however well intentioned it is. I hope to have the chance to summarise those reasons and our preferred approach. I hope that I can satisfy my hon. Friend about two things. In the specific context of the Bill we want to reduce bureaucracy and the cost attached to it, but without diminishing public protection, because we have duties in this regard that we cannot trivialise or walk away from. Secondly, we are fully committed to promoting volunteering, which is the Bill’s stated aim.
We have considered the Bill carefully in the time that we have been allowed and, although we welcome its aims, we oppose it principally for three reasons, the first of which is the most important; the other two flow from it. The first reason is that for the proposed fit and proper person certificate to be successful, a means of independent verification and checking for accuracy would be required. We simply could not, with any sense of responsibility, leave that as a free-for-all. There is of course a balance to be struck between protection and trust, but we think that a basic level of protection and independent verification of claims is necessary and believe that the CRB check fulfils that role, although we are very clear that it needs to be reformed and retuned in terms of proportionality and a return to common sense.
Mr Chope
I am not surprised that that is the Minister’s approach, although I am disappointed. How, then, does he think it is reasonable that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs can allow trustees of charities to deal with large sums of money on the basis of a mere declaration that is subject to no independent verification?
Mr Hurd
I think that the contexts are completely different. As I go on to explain what we are doing to reform the CRB process, I hope I will go some way towards satisfying my hon. Friend that we intend to reduce bureaucracy without undermining basic protection.
Our other concerns flow from the premise that some form of independent verification is required, and the Bill is silent on how that will work. Our concern is that we will be replacing one form of bureaucracy with another, and with costs attached. I will set out briefly a summary of what we are doing in relation to the existing CRB system in the light of the concerns that have been expressed.
We announced in the coalition programme for government a commitment to
“review the criminal records and vetting and barring regime and scale it back to common sense levels.”
The outcomes of the reviews were published on 11 February and three of the recommendations are particularly pertinent to the Bill. First, CRB checks will in future be provided only to the applicant, which will enable them to challenge any disputed or inappropriate information before it is seen by an employer or volunteering organisation. That is an important issue. I had a constituency case only two weeks ago in which a gentleman was appalled to see the information on his statement, so this change is important.
Secondly, and critically, CRB checks will be made more portable between different employers by introducing an updating service. This will enable employers to check whether a previous disclosure certificate is still valid, reducing the need for repeat checks. Thirdly, CRB checks will not be provided for anyone under the age of 16, an important point relating to clause 2, which proposes that CRB checks be restricted to those over 21. As my hon. Friend knows well, these recommendations require legislation and are being taken forward in the Protection of Freedoms Bill, which is currently going through the House. The Government believe that the current CRB check process and the implementation of the February 2011 recommendations provide the fit and proper person certificate process described in the Bill.
United Kingdom Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill
Christopher Chope Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am delighted to see in the Chamber distinguished colleagues who are members of the European Scrutiny Committee and others who have kindly agreed to support the Bill. My hon. Friends the Members for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) are two such Members.
I am delighted that, pursuant to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, at 11 o’clock the Prime Minister is going to come along and tell Parliament about the implications of the European Security Council resolution last night.
Mr Chope
That just shows how they’ve got at me, doesn’t it? I am going to tell the House later about some of my discussions earlier in the week in, dare one say it, Brussels.
The principle of parliamentary sovereignty means that the UK Parliament can enact any law whatsoever on any subject whatsoever, and can do so by ordinary legislation. That means that if the people want to change the law, their representatives elected to Parliament can do so. Likewise, if the people do not want the law to be changed, their parliamentary representatives can ensure that it is not. If the courts interpret laws that we have passed in a way that Parliament does not wish, it can change those laws.
This is still a hot topic, despite the lengthy discussions about it in this place when we debated the European Union Bill. To give a flavour of it, I shall give examples of the regular correspondence that I get from constituents on it. I have a letter dated 10 March, an old-fashioned holograph from a lady from Christchurch. She says that she is fed up with the way in which the British people are being overridden by the EU and disappointed by what the Prime Minister said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) about a referendum. She thinks that the sooner we get the British people a say in the issue, the better.
I have another letter, which came this Monday, which talks about the people’s pledge and the desire for the voters of the UK to decide once and for all whether we should remain in the EU or leave it. In a sense, the purpose of the Bill is to ensure that we do not have to go through that process, because we in this elected House would be able to decide what we wanted and what we did not want in relation to EU legislation.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Under my hon. Friend’s splendid Bill, would we also be able to overturn the vote against reaffirming the sovereignty of the UK that the House took during the debates on the European Union Bill? Would it effectively put us back where we really belong?
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and indebted to him for the work that he has done on this subject. This is but the latest in a series of Bills, many of which he has drafted. Of course, he knows the answer to his question, which is that if the Bill were passed, it would have the effect that he has described. I think the House and the country would be a better place as a result.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I may be anticipating a point that my hon. Friend will make later—he may just be clearing his throat and will turn to the contents of the Bill in a moment. May I take him to the last word of clause 1, which is “reaffirmed”? If the Bill is enacted with the words:
“The sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament is hereby reaffirmed”,
will that change the current situation or leave it as it is?
Mr Chope
Arguably, it would leave it as it is. There was a debate on the European Union Bill about whether we needed to reaffirm our sovereignty. My concern, which I think was first expressed in the House by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), is: “If you don’t use it, you lose it.” The monarch—the Queen—is sovereign, but because she has not exercised her sovereignty for a period of time and is exercising it less and less, there comes a stage when people say, “You have given it up.”
The concern that I and a lot of other Members have is that if we do not keep reasserting our sovereignty, we might suddenly find that an external body or court interprets that as meaning that, by default, we have conceded that Parliament no longer has sovereignty in various aspects of our country’s affairs. That is why clause 1 is in the Bill. It may seem bizarre that we have to reassert that, but I believe that we need to do so because our Parliament is under continual assault from external organisations that are trying to interfere with our right to decide our own affairs.
Mr Cash
May I refer vicariously, through my hon. Friend, to the book written by Jeffrey Goldsworthy, which would give my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) an opportunity to catch up with the meaning that should be given to the words “parliamentary sovereignty”? It points out that the necessity to reaffirm that is becoming acute, for the reason that the European Scrutiny Committee’s report published the other day stated clearly. Certain judges in the Supreme Court are strongly suggesting that parliamentary sovereignty has been qualified, and that they hold ultimate authority. That is a recent and extremely dangerous move.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I do not want to detain my hon. Friend, but it was not the beginning of clause 1 that I was questioning; it was the word “reaffirmed”. I wonder whether the word “affirmed” or “exists” would have done.
In 1948, or sometime about then, when NATO was created, we agreed to give our sovereignty on starting a war to people who were then at Fontainebleau and later moved to Brussels. I do not mean that as an argument against my hon. Friend, and I am not opposing what he is trying to do, I am just trying to clear up what clause 1 actually means and why its last word matters.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend asks why use the word “reaffirmed” rather than “exists”. I have chosen that particular word, but other words could be substituted for it. I am not saying that it is the only word that could be used in clause 1 to convey the meaning that I wish to get across. I think it is a good word, and unless and until somebody comes up with an amendment that they think is better, I would like to keep it in the Bill. If my hon. Friend would like to join me in considering the Bill in Committee in due course, I am sure he will have the chance to move amendments and speak to them to explain why he thinks his choice of words is better than the words in the Bill.
May I take the House back briefly to the “Invitation to Join the Government of Britain”, which was the title given to the Conservative party manifesto at the last general election? On page 114, under the subtitle “Promote our national interest—an open and democratic Europe”, it is stated:
“The steady and unaccountable intrusion of the European Union into almost every aspect of our lives has gone too far. A Conservative government will negotiate for three specific guarantees—on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, on criminal justice, and on social and employment legislation—with our European partners to return powers that we believe should reside with the UK, not the EU. We seek a mandate to negotiate the return of these powers from the EU to the UK.”
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I understand that the Ministry of Defence has had to pulp several books because it does not like them. Is it correct that Conservative central office has tried to pulp all the previous manifestos?
Mr Chope
I do not know, but I think my hon. Friend is perhaps a bit harsh. I hope that all Conservatives in this Parliament, who were elected on that manifesto, are trying their hardest to ensure that its words are implemented. My hon. Friend is in the forefront of trying to achieve that objective.
We were also promised in an informal meeting of the Conservative parliamentary party that there were red lines around our policy on Europe in the coalition agreement. We therefore believed that the words that I have just read out would not only remain part of the Conservative party manifesto but be inherent in the coalition manifesto.
I do not want to go back over the European Union Bill because we had long discussions about it, but recent events have brought home to me the fact that the gradual erosion of our sovereignty remains a live issue. We had a debate on Wednesday evening, which is, in a sense, unfinished business, because the Division is deferred to next Wednesday, about the fact that the Government have decided to use section 6 of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 so that the Prime Minister can agree to amend article 136 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union next weekend to establish a permanent stability mechanism for the euro.
The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) made one of the most interesting interventions in that short debate when he asked:
“Would it not be more appropriate for an intergovernmental agreement to be reached among the member states of the eurozone, rather than have some change to the treaty on the functioning of the European Union?”
My right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe replied:
“It would have been possible for the member states of the eurozone to have come to such an intergovernmental agreement, but they chose not to do so.”
Surely if member states want to set up intergovernmental arrangements centred around the euro and the eurozone, they should be allowed to do so. There is no reason for the Government, controlled by Parliament, to be dragged into that process. It then became apparent that Parliament was being asked to give the Government authority to negotiate away some of our powers because it was thought sensible for us to be party to an unnecessary treaty amendment. If it is not necessary, why are we doing it? How is that consistent with what was said in our manifesto?
Later in the debate, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe said:
“Should there be any suggestion of amending the draft decision at the European Council—there is no such suggestion from any quarter at present—”.—[Official Report, 16 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 422-24.]
However, as I said, I was in Brussels for three days at the beginning of this week and I picked up a copy of European Voice, a newspaper that circulates there. An article on page seven, under the headline “MEPs confident of getting say on bail-out mechanism”, states:
“MEPs expressed optimism on…8 March that EU member states will accept their demands to link a permanent bail-out mechanism for the eurozone more closely to the EU institutions.”
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
I am curious about who publishes European Voice. Is it a paid periodical, something that the Commission publishes or something that circulates among MEPs?
Mr Chope
It may be all those—I do not know. However, I suspect that the people who ultimately pay for it are the hon. Gentleman and I through our taxes. Interestingly, on the same page, without comment or criticism, a paragraph states:
“MEPs vote to increase their own office allowances”
to €225 a year. Since that news item is included without any adverse comment, I suspect that the publication is associated with the European Parliament.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend completely accurate? Is it €225 a year or a second?
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just say that the hon. Gentleman has been entirely relevant so far? He has nothing to fear.
Mr Chope
Accolades from Mr Speaker are always welcome in my heart.
The article continues:
“The European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee on Monday (7 March) gave its backing to a limited EU treaty change to incorporate the European Stability Mechanism into the EU treaty, only on condition that the new system is kept ‘as close as possible’ to the EU system, with the involvement of the European Commission and the Parliament.”
Basically, we are in a position whereby our Government are telling Parliament that the stability mechanism is solely to do with eurozone members and asking for authorisation for a treaty change, but the European Parliament is saying that the consequence of that change is giving the European Commission and the European Parliament a say over something that our Government tell us has no relevance to the United Kingdom.
Mr Cash
I do not know whether it is any consolation to my hon. Friend, but under the arrangements, the European Parliament has a right only to be consulted in that respect. However, it is pressing hard and I doubt that he has missed the fact that it deliberately moved consideration of the question to the date—24 and 25 March—when the European Council meets to exert pressure on it. Its ambition to get control and to insist on the Community method knows no bounds.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend’s suspicions are well founded and backed by the facts that he gives the House. As we speak, moves are afoot on that issue.
I wish to address the remainder of my remarks to another matter—the admission of the European Union into the European convention on human rights. Page 113 of the Conservative manifesto states:
“We will never allow Britain to slide into a federal Europe.”
Yet article 6 of the Lisbon treaty and article 59 of the European convention on human rights as amended by protocol 14 provide for the European Union to accede to the European convention on human rights. On that basis, the European Union would become a non-state contracting party to the convention. It is said that it would be entitled to have a European Union judge, joining the other 47 judges from the member states of the Council of Europe, to adjudicate on issues relating to interpretation of the convention.
Clearly, that is not some innocuous move whereby the European Union submits to the European convention on human rights because it thinks that it is a good thing and desirable that European Union institutions should comply with the principles laid down in it. The European Union clearly has it in mind to put its toe in the door—or, perhaps more appropriately at this time of year, to be a cuckoo in the nest—and effectively drive out the convention and replace it with its own charter of fundamental rights, administered by the European Court of Justice.
If one looks back, one sees that the first reference in European Union law to fundamental rights was in article 6(2) of the 1992 Maastricht treaty, which provides that the European Union
“shall respect fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms…and as they result from the constitutional traditions common to the Member States, as general principles of Community law.”
Of course, no one would quarrel with that because it basically enunciated that there is no difference between the European Union law and approach to fundamental rights and the approach of the European convention on human rights. However, since then, the EU has developed its interpretation of those fundamental rights far in excess of what was originally thought reasonable.
Mr Nuttall
Is there not the danger that the EU will allow nationals of foreign states to vote in our general elections?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend has a point—that is part of the European charter of fundamental rights. Thinking along those lines caused one of the witnesses to the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform last month to say that even if we won the day against the European convention on human rights on prisoner voting, we would find a case brought against us by the European Court of Justice—the EU would prosecute us through the ECJ for failing to comply with the fundamental freedoms it has laid down. In the same way, the bizarre ruling the other day will result in my 21-year-old daughter paying a much higher insurance premium for driving than the marketplace says she should pay. How absurd is that? That is another example of the way in which the EU uses its institutions to continue to interfere with what should be our domestic law.
Mr Cash
Both the charter of fundamental rights and the European convention on human rights, in their differing judicial aspects—the ECJ and the European Court of Human Rights—impinge on UK sovereignty. Is my hon. Friend aware that the Lord Chancellor himself took part in a European Committee two or three days ago? He and I had an interesting altercation on his assertion that the incorporation of the charter of fundamental rights does not change anything very much. However, for all the reasons that my hon. Friend is giving, to which I referred in that debate, the incorporation makes a substantial difference because it concentrates a mass of precedence from the European Court of Human Rights in the charter, and is thereby adjudicated by the ECJ.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is possible for a 21-year-old woman to have an appalling driving record and for a 21-year-old man to have an exemplary driving record, and therefore that their insurance premiums should be based on their driving habits?
Mr Chope
My view is that such issues should be sorted out in the marketplace by the people who provide driving insurance. If an insurance company takes that line—I am sure that some do—why can it not be given the freedom to do what it wants in the marketplace? It is absolutely outrageous that a foreign court and not even a British one should try to dictate to us how our insurance industry, which I think is the best globally, should respond to particular risks.
I note that the hon. Gentleman thinks that that is a good thing, which is in tune with the big advertisement from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe that appears on the back page of the newspaper to which I referred. The advert says how important it is for more power to be taken away from parliamentarians and given to the European Commission and states:
“Europe needs a community not a pact”.
It goes on about how important it is for member states to
“act in unison under the leadership and direction of the European Commission”,
that there is every evidence that an intergovernmental approach does not work and that the community method is much better. I give full marks to the hon. Gentleman; he is fully in tune with the thinking of European Union Liberal Democrats, but I must tell him that I am fully opposed to all that.
Sir Peter Bottomley
Having listened to the exchange between you, Mr Speaker, and my hon. Friend, I think it would be in order for him to refer again to a proposal in his Bill. Clause 3, “Judicial notice”—a heading that might be explained—mentions “any rule of international law” in subsection (b). The first debate this morning was a debate on the Wreck Removal Convention Bill. If enacted, that will bring a convention—a piece of international law—into domestic law. How do we avoid a referendum on that under the terms of the United Kingdom Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill?
Mr Chope
Under this Bill, we would not need to have a referendum on the international convention on wrecks any more than we would on any other convention. Clause 2 says that referendums will apply to the implementation of legal instruments that increase the function of the European Union affecting the United Kingdom.
Sir Peter Bottomley
That is the assertion that I am sure is in my hon. Friend’s mind, and not one with which I would necessarily disagree, but the Bill does not say that. It reaffirms
“the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament; and for connected purposes”.
Clause 1, which we have discussed, states:
“The sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament is hereby reaffirmed”
for one reason or another. However, clause 2 states:
“No Minister…shall make or implement any legal instrument which…is inconsistent with this Act”—
alternatively, not additionally—
“without requiring it to be approved in a referendum of the electorate in the United Kingdom.”
It was clearly explained earlier—I think my hon. Friend was in the Chamber—that if the Wreck Removal Convention Bill becomes an Act and the convention becomes international law, ratifying the convention will make international law apply to us without our Parliament having done anything more. I leave that question with him. If he does not have the answer today, perhaps he will write to me afterwards.
Mr Chope
Perhaps we will deal with that in Committee. I admit to being present during the fantastic speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) in support of her Bill, but I must admit that I was not following every iota of its content, so I am not sure whether what has been said on her behalf by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) is a valid objection to or criticism of my Bill.
Despite my hon. Friend’s intervention, I will not be diverted from finishing expressing my concerns about the proposals for the admission of the EU to the European convention on human rights. Fortunately, my understanding is that our Government have a veto, and its details are being discussed at intergovernmental level—certainly by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe this week. I hope that the Minister will realise after this debate that we need to be alert and concerned about the implications of what is happening.
I say that because on 19 May 2010, the European Parliament passed a resolution on what it described as
“the institutional aspects of the accession of the European Union to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”.
Like most such resolutions, it is rather too long for most of us to bother to read—it runs to several pages—but I want to draw the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends to paragraph K on page 2. It states that the European Parliament stresses that
“the main arguments in favour of accession of the Union”—
the European Union—
“to the ECHR…may be summarised as follows: accession constitutes a move forward in the process of European integration and involves one further step towards political Union”.
If that is the interpretation put on it by the European Parliament, we need go no further than getting a commitment from the Government today that they will not support this, and that in discussions on it they will play hardball, rather than the softball they have been playing up to now over EU powers.
The resolution also states that
“while the Union’s system for the protection of fundamental rights will be supplemented and enhanced by the incorporation…into its primary law, its accession to the ECHR will send a strong signal concerning the coherence between the Union and the countries belonging to the Council of Europe”.
It is actually nothing short of an attempted takeover. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) will probably be alert to the point at which the resolution states that
“accession will also compensate to some extent for the fact that the scope of the Court of Justice of the European Union is somewhat constrained in the matters of foreign and security policy and police and security policy by providing useful external judicial supervision of all EU activities”.
This is all part of the creep and incrementalism of the EU as it tries to put its finger into everybody’s pies.
Mr Cash
Given that the Prime Minister is coming to the House in about 40 minutes, will my hon. Friend bear it in mind that in the context of the matters to which he has referred—foreign and security policy and so on—it is woefully apparent that the EU had absolutely nothing to offer other than obstacles in dealing with the question of a no-fly zone, or indeed any other matter relating to Libya?
Mr Chope
That is absolutely right. Of course, we know that at the Security Council key members of the EU—France and this country—voted one way, but the Germans did not support us. They did not support us in the Security Council, but that is not the end of our friendship in Europe, and I do not think that our Government should be saying that if they do not do everything that German Governments want to do in Europe, it will undermine European solidarity. It is possible for sovereign countries to disagree on these issues.
At the European Parliament on Monday, I attended a meeting that included Mr Duff, to whom the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) referred earlier. It was a meeting of about half a dozen Members of the European Parliament and half a dozen Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to look into the details of EU admission to the ECHR. Important questions were posed to which no answers were given. For example, at the moment, a number of EU countries have opt-outs from various parts of the European convention or its protocols, yet the EU is proposing to sign up to the convention in toto and to its protocols. To what extent does that mean that the EU member states that have taken a different view of particular provisions of the European convention will find that, notwithstanding their reservations, they are bound into that regime by the fact that the EU has joined the ECHR?
At a time when we are concerned about prisoner voting rights, for example, and about the administration of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe—will it accept our right to have a bit of latitude in the interpretation of the treaty, or will it insist on forcing through the exact terms of the judgment?—it has been proposed that the EU should join the Committee of Ministers. There is also a proposal that the European Parliament should join in part the PACE, even though the Council of Europe treaty that set up the Council in 1949 expressly provides that the members of the Parliamentary Assembly should be elected parliamentarians from the member countries that join the Council of Europe. The EU is not a country and is not signing up to the Council Europe; it is only seeking to sign up to the ECHR.
I cannot go into all the details now. However, I want to draw my hon. Friend the Minister’s attention to exactly how grave and serious the issue is and how much it threatens to undermine his and the Government’s position, which is to ensure that we do not cede any more sovereignty to European institutions. Indeed, we ought to try to regain control over issues such as the fundamental rights convention and the Fundamental Rights Agency, which we want to bring back under this Parliament’s control. I know that a lot of other people want to join in this debate, but may I just say that the Bill would be a useful way of ensuring that this Parliament has its voice? This Parliament needs to do what the MEPs are doing against us. On every single occasion, they try to extend their remit, so that they have more control. We in this Parliament should increase our power and ensure that we have greater control over what his happening in our name.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
So far, my hon. Friend has concentrated his speech largely on the EU and the ECHR. However, I would like to pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley). Does my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) intend to address clause 3(b), which talks not only about European institutions, but about international law and all of Britain’s other treaty and international obligations, which would be affected quite dramatically by the Bill?
Mr Chope
Frankly, I was not going to, but if my hon. Friend is going to use clause 3(b) as a justification for not supporting my Bill, and if he thinks that it should be excluded and that the ambit of the Bill is too wide, I will allow him to dilate on that at length, if need be, during his remarks. I am a perfectly reasonable person, and if he thinks that clause 3(b) goes too far, I might be amenable to an amendment to delete it.
Mr Cash
I think that the Minister might be in grave danger of misunderstanding the Bill’s provisions. It does not say that it will override any international law; all it says is that, under clause 2, if there is any question of an increase in the functions of the EU affecting the UK or if a legal instrument is inconsistent with the Bill, the judiciary would not be able to invoke any rule of international law in order to frustrate that provision. However, we could discuss all this in Committee, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) has rightly said.
Sir Peter Bottomley
But is our hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) right? I am not sure that if we read the Bill from beginning to end, which is the way that I normally try to read Bills, we find that it says that. If my hon. Friend thought that he ought to curtail his speech—we thought he had just been clearing his throat—because others want to speak, or because he wants the Government to explain, I am sure we ought to stick by our normal conventions. I know that it is a rule but not a convention. My hon. Friend normally keeps the House going for quite some time when a private Member’s Bill is being promoted, and the Minister does not always have time to complete his speech. I do not see why he should change the convention simply because my hon. Friend is promoting a Bill himself.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I put in a bid for our hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) as well?
Chris Bryant
No, this is an application not to be on the Bill Committee. I have heard these arguments so many times that I have no desire to hear them all over again, even if it would give us an opportunity to hear the whole of the Minister’s speech on the subject. May I point out to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) that greed is a sin? Taking so many private Members’ Bills on one day might be thought somewhat greedy.
Mr Chope
I have been accused of many things, but not greed. People who are frustrated legislators and willing to spend a couple of nights sleeping in the Palace of Westminster to queue up for their tickets may have the opportunity of having their Bills brought before the House. I hope that some of my other Bills on the Order Paper will be debated, not least my Local Government Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill. When I first put that title down last June, I had not anticipated that I would read in my local paper last Friday that the Hampshire county council health and safety people had interfered in the Beaulieu pancake race, so that it is now the Beaulieu pancake walk rather than race. I had not realised that my third Bill would be so relevant to a local story, but now it has a relevance above all else. I hope that we get a chance to discuss it.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I do not think that my hon. Friend should have taken the words of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—who is speaking for the whole of his party, I see—too seriously, partly because we should not accuse someone of greed during Lent, but also because the House should be grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing the Bills along together. It is no different from a group of MPs sharing a taxi: it is simply combining things. My hon. Friend is now talking about his third Bill. What about his second one?
UN Security Council Resolution (Libya)
Christopher Chope Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman puts the point extremely well. I agree that there should be regular statements updating the House. We should start with a debate on Monday on a substantive motion, so that Members can debate that, and propose amendments if they want. We will be putting down that substantive motion later today, so that colleagues can have a look at it.
On taking the country with us, the hon. Gentleman’s point about legality is vital. We have a legal basis here—the UN, the world’s governing body, coming together and making that clear—and we need to explain that what we are doing is legal, proportionate and right. But I also believe that, as I said a moment ago, to take people with us we have to make the arguments both that it is wrong to stand aside as this dictator massacres his own people and it is in our interests to act, and also that it is in our national interest, because we do not want this pariah state on our borders.
The point the hon. Gentleman makes about no ground troops and no occupying force is vital. That is in the UN Security Council resolution; it is the reassurance that we can give to people that that is not part of our aims—it is not want the UN wants, it is not what the Arab League wants, it is not what Britain wants. That is clearly a limitation on our ability to act, but it is absolutely right, and I think people will be reassured by it.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
May I also commend my right hon. Friend on his decisive leadership? Why does he think Germany abstained on this resolution, and is Germany going to be interfering in preventing us from recognising the regime in Benghazi?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend very much for his support. On the German attitude, to be fair to the German Chancellor, whom I spoke to last night, she has been consistently sceptical about this issue. I do not believe that Germany will in any way be destructive within NATO, because it recognises that the UN has voted for this resolution, on which the Germans, of course, abstained. It is for them to explain their scepticism. Of course arguments can always be made about, “If we are acting here, why not elsewhere?” But as I have said, in this instance the case for action and the world coming together is very strong.
United Kingdom Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill
Christopher Chope Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Chope
I do not intend to withdraw the Bill—it is important to put it to the test. Constituents up and down the country will want to see whether their Conservative representatives are doing their best to try to implement the manifesto commitments on which we were elected at the general election, or whether we are prepared to allow those commitments to fall to one side because we are in a coalition. I understood that the Government were trying their hardest to implement the commitments, but from what the Minister has said, I remain to be convinced.
I am grateful to all those who have participated in the debate and those who have supported the Bill. I am particularly indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) for his great knowledge on the matter; much of the Bill’s drafting is owed to his work in the past. He mentioned Jeffrey Goldsworthy, who has written a document on parliamentary sovereignty—I say document, but it was published as part of the “Cambridge Studies in Constitutional Law”.
Mr Chope
He has written more than one document. I find it odd that the Minister asserts that everything that Jeffrey Goldsworthy says on the important subject of parliamentary sovereignty is wrong, and that the Minister is right—he has many attributes, but I am not sure that he is a constitutional law expert. I would prefer to go along with Jeffrey Goldsworthy’s expertise in the absence of any other compelling legal arguments.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) for raising some interesting points, not least when he intervened when the Minister objected to clause 1. The Minister seems to be under the illusion that the courts in this country can only interpret legislation, rather than apply common law principles. My hon. Friend bowled the Minister middle stump on that.
I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) for her support. She has done the House and the people a great service in tabling a host of probing and effective written questions that have exposed the Government’s policy for what it is—the Government are far too relaxed about the further erosion of our sovereignty.
I commend the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on the brevity of his speech. There is a lot to be said for Opposition Front Benchers making similarly short speeches when they do not have any support on their own side of the House at all, as is the situation today.
The idea that the UN resolution passed last night is inconsistent with the Bill is far fetched. May I suggest a better analogy? When this country went to a war in Iraq that, arguably, was illegal under international law, we were not prosecuted by some international criminal court. However, if we went into something that was at odds with the decisions of the European Court of Justice, we would be prosecuted and taken before that Court on the continent. That is the difference.
The Minister suggests that various details of the Bill could be made clearer. One way to do so would be to ensure that clause 2 refers to clause 1. However, the essence of the Bill is in clause 1, which stands on its own, reaffirming the sovereignty of this Parliament.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend made a good point on that, to which the Minister did not really respond.
I tried earlier in the debate to give examples of where our sovereignty is under continued threat of erosion, not least of which was how we are left powerless when international courts make rulings against us. We are told that we cannot, as a sovereign Parliament, correct those rulings and redress the balance in a way that our constituents wish us to do. I am disappointed that my hon. Friend the Minister did not respond to any of those issues, so the best thing to do would be to press the Bill to a Division.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Parliament (Amendment) Bill
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Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This Bill follows on from a ten-minute rule Bill that had the support of the House earlier this Session. Although I say it myself, the timing of this Second Reading is perfect, because it follows Royal Assent being given to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill; the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill is still being discussed in the other place; and the Government have not yet produced their draft Bill on reform of the other place, although they keep saying that such a Bill will be introduced imminently.
My Bill would ensure that the number of people sitting and voting in the other place did not exceed the number of elected Members in this place. As a result of the passing of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, from the next general election, anticipated to be in May 2015, there will be only 600 Members in this House. That reduction was made not least to save public money. I see no case whatever for the other place having more than 600 unelected Members.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
I have listened carefully to what my hon. Friend said about the timing of his Bill. He referred to the Government’s proposals on House of Lords reform, which are being drafted and which we will publish shortly. Is it not therefore premature of him to have brought forward his proposals about numbers? Given that his Bill has no mechanism for achieving those numbers, would it not be better for him to participate fully in the scrutiny of our draft Bill to achieve the effect that he desires?
Mr Chope
I hope to be able to do that as well. My hon. Friend will not have failed to notice that my Bill would come into force on 1 May 2015, so it is forward looking, like much of the material that I bring before the House. I do not think that his is an adequate objection to the Bill. I hope that the measures in clause 1 will be in the draft Bill that the Government talk about bringing forward; I would have thought it unconscionable for the Government to propose that the other place have more than 600 Members. I hope that, on reflection, my hon. Friend will be prepared to accept clause 1.
Clause 2 deals with the number of Ministers in the House of Commons. Under the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, the maximum number is 95. As has been accepted by the Government—this point is supported strongly on both sides of the Chamber and in the other place—if we reduce the number of members of the legislature, we should also reduce the number of members of the Executive; otherwise, the balance between the Executive and the legislature gets out of kilter. Indeed, that was a recommendation of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, of which I am privileged to be a member, in our report last October. We said:
“It is self-evident that a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament will increase the dominance of the Executive over Parliament if the number of Ministers sitting and voting in the House is not correspondingly reduced. This is a matter of constitutional importance that goes to the heart of the relationship between the Executive and the House.”
This very day the Government have responded to the Committee’s recommendations. Cmd 7997 states:
“The Government remains committed to strengthening Parliament in relation to the Executive…We have been clear that we accept the principle that there is a link between the legislature and the size of the executive.”
So we are making progress.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a sound argument, which I totally support. May I draw his attention to the business listed for Wednesday 7 September 2011? It includes the Second Reading of my House of Commons Disqualification (Amendment) Bill, which would remove a number of Ministers at a stroke, and they happen to be in the Whips Office.
Mr Chope
I had the privilege of listening to my hon. Friend when he made a very powerful speech introducing that Bill under the ten-minute rule. Nothing in my Bill cuts across or undermines anything in his Bill, which I hope will make swift progress when it comes before the House.
The Government’s argument against clause 2 of my Bill is given in paragraph 91 of today’s Command Paper:
“There is no immediate need to resolve this issue, since the provisions relating to a reduced number of MPs will not take effect until 2015. The Government therefore intends to reflect on the arguments made during the passage of this Bill”—
the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill—
“and set out its plans once there is greater clarity on the composition of the second Chamber, including how many Ministers could be drawn from there.”
It seems as though the Government are moving in the same direction, but clause 2 of my Bill would be a bit more of a nudge in that direction. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to confirm that the matter will be resolved during this Parliament. I certainly remain concerned about that.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Government and now the Boundary Commission are pressing on speedily with reviewing the legislature. Indeed, the Boundary Commission has, also today, published its new electoral quotas and confirmed the numbers of seats for each of the countries in the United Kingdom. It has also said that it intends to produce its provisional recommendations this autumn. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the Government are pressing on so quickly with the reduction in the legislature, they should at the same time look at the Executive?
Mr Chope
I agree with the hon. Gentleman completely. This is very important because we do not want the issue of how large the Executive will be to be left to the Executive to decide after the next general election. I think that the balance between the size of the Executive and the size of the legislature should be for the legislature to decide. If we are to have a smaller legislature, we need to impose a smaller Executive well in advance of the next election.
Mr Bone
Is not one danger of having a smaller number of MPs to scrutinise the Government while also having an ever-increasing Executive that there will be more and more demand from people to split the powers and take the Executive out of the House of Commons? That would be a wrong move, but it is a danger because of the direction in which the Government are heading.
Mr Chope
As so often, my hon. Friend is probably on to a good point; one can almost read between the lines of the Command Paper to which I referred, which seems to suggest that the Government might increase the number of Ministers in the other place as a quid pro quo.
We need to put limits on the number of Ministers in this House. I suggest 80. At present, the maximum is 95. If we can have a leaner civil service and public sector, we can also have a leaner Government in terms of the number of Members who hold ministerial office, so I commend clause 2 to the House.
Clause 3 deals with Parliamentary Private Secretaries. At present, there is no limit on their number. Bearing in mind that they are used as lobby fodder, have responsibilities to their Ministers and are appointed by the Prime Minister and that if they step out of line by so much as supporting one of my Bills on a Friday their career as a PPS is at an end, we should give them recognition in statute and limit their number. I suggest that
“no more than 25 persons being the holders of the office of Parliamentary Private Secretary shall be entitled to sit and vote in the House of Commons at any one time.”
That would be roughly one PPS to each Secretary of State, which would be more than ample.
The provision would not stop the Government doing what they do at the moment, which is to appoint people who are not given the title of Parliamentary Private Secretary; they are advisers, deputy chairmen or vice-chairmen of the party or they have a special responsibility in this or that Department—all part of the patronage system. The Bill would not stop that, but it would at least prevent the number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries from increasing as it is at the moment. A side-effect of my proposal is that we would have to put on the public record who the Parliamentary Private Secretaries are and where they are; at the moment, that information is not easily available.
Clause 4 deals with ministerial office in the other place, to try to ensure that we do not end up with a bloated Executive there after any reforms that may be introduced. Although the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, tells us that there will be a draft Bill, who would be so bold as to put their money on its being enacted before the next general election? I suspect the odds might be similar to those on Ireland beating England at cricket the other day.
Clause 4 is important because the provision that states that
“Not more than 10% of those persons who are entitled to sit and vote in the House of Lords at any one time shall be the holders of Ministerial offices”
will apply even if there has been no reform of the other place before the next general election. I thought 10% was a generous quota; if there were 600 Members, there would be a maximum of 60 Ministers in the other place.
Of course, there is no point in limiting the number of Ministers if we cannot also limit the number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries in the other place, so clause 5 would provide that not more than 3% of those
“who are entitled to sit and vote in the House of Lords at any one time shall be holders of the office of Parliamentary Private Secretary.”
This is a short, straightforward, easily understood and transparent piece of legislation.
Mr Bone
I think my hon. Friend is about to reach a conclusion. Before he does so, will he tell us whether he has had a letter of support for the Bill from the Prime Minister? The measure is entirely in line with the Prime Minister’s very powerful speech of 26 May 2009—“Fixing broken politics” .
Mr Chope
I have not got a copy, but I am sure that if we give the Minister a chance to speak he will quote from the Prime Minister’s letter of support. I am sure that the Prime Minister is on our side. We are members of the legislature; he is, for the time being, the leader of the Executive, but he recognises the importance of the legislature having a bigger role in holding the Executive to account, and the Bill is designed to achieve that.
Mr Harper
I take my hon. Friend’s point, but if he is correct—I have no reason to think otherwise—about the incredible support for the Bill, it is surprising that of the 11 Members who beat him in getting their names attached to the Bill, none of them have troubled themselves to be here. Given that my hon. Friend has taken the trouble to be present, he might want to have a conversation with some of those who supported the Bill.
Mr Harper
No. Those were simply my opening remarks. I have many excellent points of substance, to which I shall now turn.
I will start by picking up on the points that my hon. Friend made on these exact subjects during the progress of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. He started very generously by referring to the number of Ministers in this House and accurately quoted the Government’s view, which is that we had said—
Oral Answers to Questions
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Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
8. What the policy of the Church of England is on the retention of freehold accommodation for clergy.
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Tony Baldry)
There is no single Church of England policy on the retention of freehold accommodation for clergy.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer, but does he not think that there should be such a policy in the light of what is happening in Christchurch at the moment? The vicarage adjoining the priory lies empty, but the diocese pays more than £2,000 a month to rent alternative accommodation, several miles from the priory, for the new priest in charge, who is quite willing to occupy the priory should the diocese be willing to allow that to happen. Will my hon. Friend convene a meeting, using his powers of mediation, to try to drum some common sense and economic sense into the diocese on that issue?
Tony Baldry
The Christchurch parsonage is a very large building, being twice the recommended size, and it is very expensive for the diocese to maintain and for the occupier to run. The diocese is looking to replace it with a more suitable property, and the newly appointed priest in charge has therefore simply been housed temporarily in a rented property. In this instance, I do not need to act as a mediator, because there is a perfectly good remedy. If the parochial church council is unhappy with what the diocese is doing, it can make representations that the Church Commissioners will have to consider.
Big Society
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Charlie Elphicke
Exactly so—my hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I have said how the big society can be big, but it can also be big in many small ways. Small initiatives are an essential part of the big society. It is not simply about proposals such as the large, eye-catching port of Dover example, but about small things that are done on a day-to-day basis, whether that is the individual volunteering—dare I say it?—to help the elderly lady to cross the road in the example that is so often given, or the small tenants’ association that wants to run its estate, or public sector workers who want to set up a social co-op in the private sector. We should foster such changes by getting the state to back off a bit and by giving communities, individuals and small and big groups room to breathe, and a greater say in, and a greater sense of, their future direction.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes a powerful case for a change in the regime of the port of Dover, which seems to accord with the Government’s vision of the big society. Do the Government support his vision for the port of Dover?
Charlie Elphicke
I am unable to confirm that, because as my hon. Friend knows, that is subject to a quasi-judicial process. Even if the Government are supportive, they would be unable to say so, lest they attract a judicial review. Nevertheless, I hope the Government review the criteria of the bidding and privatisation process to enable a community bid to go through, and indeed that they will price in social and community enterprise value in privatisations or movements out of the public sector and into the private sector. In that way, communities will have a fair and a good chance to take over assets that are important to them and that matter to them.
I hope the Government produce revised proposals and that they give firm consideration to making that change. In doing so, they will send a strong signal that communities and decentralisation matter, that we want to give the balance of confidence to communities and that we want those economic benefits. Our proposal would give Dover a massive confidence lift and help to drive our local economy.
Regions throughout the UK need more confidence and to be more able to grow, prosper and do well, so that we can heal the divide between London, where all the prosperity seems to be, and the regions, which are left out. The regions will then have much more economic vitality and energy, which will make a massive difference in the future of the big society.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
This is an extraordinary occasion in that the unelected House of Parliament is, with absolutely no sense of irony, telling the elected half of Parliament how to conduct a ballot. The simple principle is that in elections and referendums it is the people who turn up who decide the result, not the people who do not turn up.
In my brief remarks last night I recalled many election results in Bristol—I am sure you would have found this very interesting, Madam Deputy Speaker, had you been in the Chair—when the turnout had fallen below 40%. I have since looked up a few more statistics. For the European Parliament elections in 2009, only 34% of the British public turned out to vote. I say in all candour to Conservative coalition colleagues that I do not recall any of them saying at the time that that was not a valid election result. In fact, I recall them saying that the Conservative party had won that election.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman not at all concerned that, having listened to the arguments he deployed last night, the Lords majority was 62 rather one?
Stephen Williams
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is my Political and Constitutional Reform Committee colleague, for that intervention, but I think he can predict my answer. What disturbs me about the response from their Lordships last night is that it ignores the will of the elected House. Our fellow Select Committee colleague, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), got that balance exactly right.
The Welsh Assembly election in 2003 had a turnout of only 38%. I ask my Labour friend, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is an ally in arguing for a yes vote should we have the referendum in Wales, does he really think the Government of Rhodri Morgan who were elected in 2003 had no validity because only 38% of his constituents turned out? Does the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) think the Labour administration of Manchester city council, elected on a 27% turnout in 2008, has no legitimacy whatever? That same question could be asked of Sheffield with 36%, or Leeds—a Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition—with 35.7%.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Mr Harper
In that case, it was not proposed by the Government, so I do not think that that makes the case. There was a clear vote in Scotland in favour of the proposal, but the turnout threshold was not reached. That did not settle the question; it merely enabled the question to fester for a number of years without being settled. I do not think that my hon. Friend is correct.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
My hon. Friend says that he wants this matter to be decided by this House, but would not that be the effect of Lord Rooker’s amendment? If there were a lower than 40% turnout in the referendum, it would be for this House to decide what to do. Is that not a good idea?