Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Bob Stewart

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 23rd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Well, that is another one on the agenda for the next Session of Parliament, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I will just conclude by saying that there is another element to this: the Sentencing Council guidelines for dealing with animal welfare offences. They say that a period of imprisonment should be merited only in the most serious offences. My concern about the Sentencing Council guidelines—perhaps the Minister could address this, too—is that they constrain the ability of magistrates in particular to impose the penalty that they think is appropriate, having regard to all the circumstances. If this House decides, as it wants to do today, to impose a maximum sentence of five years, is it reasonable for the unaccounted people who deal with the sentencing guidelines to bring in guidelines that suggest that there should not be many penalties of five years imposed by the Crown courts? So we have a real problem: the legislature has ceded control, or a significant part of control, over sentencing to the Sentencing Council.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My very good and hon. Friend is making good points. Do the sentencing guidelines actually say, “If you cut off the tail of a dog, it’s this. If you kick an animal down the stairs, it’s that”? Are they the sort of sentencing guidelines that he is expecting?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am not expecting them at all. I am criticising the fact that they are no longer just regarded as guidelines, but accepted by many magistrates and judges as tantamount to instructions. If my hon. Friend looks at the sentencing guidelines for animal welfare, which I commend to him, he will see that they are not that specific, but they do give some general parameters that place constraints on the discretion of magistrates. The current guidelines impose severe constraints on the magistrates’ ability to impose an immediate custodial sentence for any offence of breach of animal welfare. That is another issue that needs to be raised.

We need to work with public opinion on that and not allow the public to be disappointed. They should not think that we are offering a panacea for improving animal welfare and reducing animal cruelty. Let us hope that the Bill does deter some of the most heinous offences, but let us not think that it is the full answer to all the problems.

Regulatory Impact Assessments (Legislative Scrutiny)

Debate between Christopher Chope and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The hon. Gentleman has given a brilliant summary of my Adjournment thesis. He is saying that this should not be a tick-box exercise but that clear evidence should be presented that can then lead to proper debate and facilitate scrutiny, and that is what this is all about. I hope the Government are still wedded to that, because their better regulation unit has had consultations and is, I think, still taking the line that we need to have proper regulatory impact assessments. The purpose of this debate is to try to get some more assurance from the Government that they are going to apply these principles not just to covid-19 but to other regulatory measures that are, at the moment, being brought in with far too insufficient scrutiny.

Tomorrow it will be six months since the Department of Health and Social Care policy paper on coronavirus was published. This action plan, as it became, on which the Coronavirus Act 2020 was based, envisaged four phases: contain, delay, research and mitigate. The delay phase was to

“slow the spread in this country, if it does take hold, lowering the peak impact and pushing it away from the winter season”.

Because of the emergency timetable, the legislation had the sketchiest of regulatory impact assessments, without any cost-benefit analysis. But who would have thought that none of the regulations being made under that primary legislation would be properly evaluated before implementation? I certainly hoped that that would happen, but it has not.

The basic steps in the RIA process should involve consultation and an assessment of the nature and extent of the problems to be addressed. There should be a clear statement of the policy objectives and goals of the regulatory proposal, which should include the enforcement regime and strategy for ensuring compliance. Alternative courses of action should be identified, including any non-regulatory approaches considered as potential solutions to the identified problem. There should also be a clear outline of the benefits and costs expected from the proposal and identified alternatives. The conclusion should not only identify the preferred solution but explain how it is superior to the other alternatives considered. Finally, there should be a monitoring and evaluation framework set out describing how performance will be measured.

Although the processes I have set out could not be embarked on in the immediate emergency of introducing lockdown, they should surely form an inherent part of the process of easing lockdown, and ensuring consistent and timely relaxations of the regulations. It is the failure to do this that has resulted in sudden and contradictory changes to the regulations.

This has also led to unacceptable mission creep, which increasingly embodies a gradual shift in objectives. Hon. and right hon. Members will remember that the original objective was to enable the NHS to provide the best care to all the victims of covid-19 who needed it. That clear mission has now widened into a mission to suppress the spread of covid-19 as an end in itself, regardless of the cost. The irony is that, in allowing the original objective to be blurred, the important subsidiary objective of preventing the virus peaking again in the winter is being put in jeopardy.

The easing of lockdown has, sadly, become a veritable shambles. While the number of deaths from covid-19 has mercifully plummeted from its April peak, there has not been a corresponding relaxation of the emergency regulations. I shall refer later to the OECD principles of best practice for regulatory policy, but one of the key principles is:

“Proposed solutions should be appropriate to the risk posed, and costs identified and minimised.”

In the statement he made yesterday to the House, the Secretary of State for Health said that there are now

“60 patients in mechanical ventilator beds with coronavirus”.—[Official Report, 1 September 2020; Vol. 679, c. 23.]

This compares with 3,300 at the peak of the epidemic, and he then said that the latest quoted number for reported deaths is two in one day. Today, The Sun newspaper has calculated from these figures that the odds of catching covid-19 in England are about 44 in 1 million per day. Economist Tim Harford, who presents what I think is one, if not the only, good programme on the BBC—the statistics programme, “More or Less”—has said:

“Covid-19 currently presents a background risk of a one in a million chance of death or lasting harm, every day.”

While age, gender, geography, behaviour and other aspects affect the risk, it is now far lower than the risk of death or serious injury in a motor accident. On average, five people continue to be killed each day on our roads, yet I have not yet heard from the Government any proposals to ban people from driving because of the risks associated with so doing.

One sure way of ensuring consistency would be to impose the discipline of a regulatory impact assessment on each and every continuing restriction, so that the justification for loss of personal liberty could be evaluated against the alleged benefits. It is not too late for this to start, and I hope that the Minister, in responding to this debate, will provide an assurance that the forthcoming six-month review of the legislation will include a full regulatory impact assessment and an evaluation of the performance of the emergency regulations introduced.

The public would then be able to see the evidence about whether the decisions taken were correct. For example, was closing schools and setting back the education of the covid regeneration a proportionate and necessary measure? Was the postponement of 107,000 weddings across the United Kingdom justified? Could any of the 4,452 weddings which should have taken place last Saturday have been permitted? Why can people sit safely side by side with strangers on an aircraft, but not at a wedding breakfast or in a church, a theatre or a concert hall—or even in this Chamber?

Why was the World Health Organisation advice, which was originally that there should be 1 metre social distancing, not applied from the outset? We introduced a 2-metre or 6-foot rule, but that has now been modified with the 1 metre-plus rule, but at the same time the additional safeguards required for the 1 metre-plus situation are being applied to the 2-metre situation, which is creating all sorts of problems, conflicts and uncertainties for our constituents.

Is it protecting the NHS to create a situation where, as was revealed in The Times on 27 August, 15.3 million people are now on the hidden waiting list for treatment? Is it reasonable that we should try to prevent two deaths a day and keep 15.3 million people on waiting lists for treatment, with all the dire consequences that flow from that? Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not know whether you were listening to the Secretary of State for Health when he made his statement yesterday, but in my view his responses on the issue of NHS waiting lists were the weakest and least convincing parts of what he had to say.

Is the continuing economic cost of lockdown now disproportionate to the benefits? Well, let us have an exercise and see. Let us see the data presented, so that we can have a proper debate about it. I raised the importance of regulatory impact assessments in public policy making with the Leader of the House at business questions on 2 July. It was his response on that occasion which caused me to apply for this Adjournment debate, which I am delighted that we are having this evening. I said that we would be able to achieve much more consistency in Government advice with regulatory impact assessments. The Leader of the House, however, argued that

“if we spend too long doing all this, by the time we have done it we have moved on to the next stage of the lockdown.”

He accused me of “calling for bureaucratic folderol”, which would inhibit moving

“at a pace to ensure that things happen in a timely manner”.—[Official Report, 2 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 534.]

Would that they were. But I must correct the Leader of the House, because, far from being the worthless trifles described in the expression “folderol”, regulatory impact assessments are fundamental to ensuring that we make the right decisions as legislators.

It is incredible that, instead of lockdown continuing to be relaxed, new restrictions on freedom, such as mandatory face coverings, have been introduced. The consequence is that I detect a growing atmosphere of gloom and foreboding as we see winter approaching: no vaccine availability for many months; the economy in a worse state than most of our competitors; and the prospect of the resurgence of the pandemic coinciding with the flu season. I do not like the expression “waves” because it makes it seem as though we are talking about something equivalent to the Atlantic rollers so much enjoyed by our former Prime Minister and colleague, David Cameron. We are not talking about waves. We are talking about the potential resurgence of the pandemic—not everywhere, but in particular hotspots.

This scenario demands a rational evaluation of conflicting risks to the economy and public health, together with a cost-benefit analysis, and now is the time for the Government to reinstate the intellectual rigour of the regulatory impact assessment process. Sooner or later, the incredible economic cost of the Government’s failure to remove lockdown restrictions in a timely and effective manner will become apparent. If that coincides with the Government asking their natural supporters to pay the price for their failure through higher taxes, the political consequences will indeed be dire. It is for that reason that I commend to the Government what the OECD says about regulatory impact analysis. It describes it as an

“important element of an evidence-based approach to policy-making…that…can underpin the capacity of governments to ensure that regulations are efficient and effective in a changing and complex world.”

I will not read from the whole OECD regulatory impact assessment report on best practice principles for regulatory policy, but it extends to about 40 or 50 pages and is extremely well researched and documented. As I understand it—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—these principles are supported by the Government; the trouble is that they do not seem to be being implemented by the Government and by Government Departments. I hope that in his response the Minister will tell us what he is doing to try and put that right.

The Government should revert to following their own “better regulation framework” established under the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, which requires that

“A RIA should be prepared for all significant regulatory provisions as a standard of good policy making and where an appropriate RIA is expected by parliament and other stakeholders.”

The interim guidance issued in March this year sets out a general threshold for independent scrutiny of regulatory impact assessments and post-implementation reviews, where the annual net direct cost to business is greater than £5 million. It calls on Government Departments to undertake proportionate cost-benefit analysis to inform decision making.

The trouble is that this is not being done, and I will give just one topical example, to which I referred in my brief comments in the previous debate. Under the Coronavirus Act 2020, there was specific primary legislation saying that residential tenancies should be protected from eviction until 20 September this year. On Friday last week—27 August—regulations were made extending that period from 20 September for another six months. The regulations came into force on 28 August, which was last Saturday, the very same day that they were laid before Parliament. Regulation 1(2) says:

“These Regulations come into force on the day after the day on which they are laid”.

Those regulations have caused a storm of protest from residential landlords in my constituency; they are apoplectic about the fact that they are not going to be able to recover possession of their premises. Notwithstanding the contractual agreements they have entered into with their tenants, they are not going to be able to recover their premises until 31 March 2021.

It says in the explanatory notes to the regulations that they amend schedule 29 of the 2020 Act. This is primary legislation being amended by subordinate legislation subject only to the negative resolution procedure, and so one might have expected that there would be a regulatory impact assessment or something which would indicate to us, on behalf of our constituents, that the Government have thought this whole process through, but that is not there, and instead there is a little note which says:

“A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument due to the temporary nature of the provision.”

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my good friend for allowing me to intervene. In my constituency I have a huge backlash from residential landlords about this extension. I find it almost impossible to believe that the Department has not done an assessment of this, and I make the assumption—perhaps my hon. Friend or the Minister will correct me—that an assessment was done. I cannot believe that civil servants and decent Ministers would have made such a decision without actually looking at it, as this is a really bad thing for people who are trying to provide accommodation, because they see no good in this whatsoever; in fact it is extremely bad.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I agree with my hon. Friend. One would have expected that an assessment was carried out—we will hear from the Minister in a minute whether there was—but what was so extraordinary is that it was only a week or two before the U-turn of last week that we were being assured by Ministers that there was no proposal to extend the application time for these regulations. I imagine that when Ministers were briefing that, they had not done any work suggesting that they wanted to extend the regulations, and then, at the last minute—perhaps as a result of the pressure group behaviours to which I referred—the Government just changed their mind. They had imposed this regulation at enormous cost, but we do not know what cost, because there is no estimate of that.

[Bob Stewart]

It makes us look like clowns.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I hope that that is on the record—it makes us look like clowns. That is why I hope that we can persuade the Government to reform their ways. It is also extraordinary that the excuse should be put forward that this is a temporary arrangement and that is why there is no need for a regulatory impact assessment. That is not set out anywhere in any of the books on this, and it is a novel interpretation of what should be happening.

Switching away from the regulations directly related to coronavirus, I have received support for raising this issue from the Internet Association, which is the only trade association that exclusively represents leading global internet companies on matters of public policy. The organisation responded to the Government’s invitation when they went out to consultation in June inquiring about the reforming regulation initiative. It said, “Regulation in the digital sector has a wide range of potential impacts which extend beyond traditional economic impact analysis. As a matter of course, the Internet Association recommends that Government Departments and regulators undertake a wider impact assessment of their proposals covering not only the economic impact, but also issues such as technological feasibility and impacts on freedom of expression and privacy.” It goes on to say that “there have been a number of recent policy and regulatory initiatives in the digital sector where it has not been clear whether an impact assessment has been conducted and/or the impact assessment has not been published for external scrutiny.” It gives an example of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport/Home Office online harms White Paper. The Internet Association believes that wider regulatory impact assessments, as specified, should be required for major digital policy and regulatory initiatives. Therefore, this extends into that field also, as it does to all legislative and Government policy making—or it should do—and I hope that we will be able to get ourselves back on track.

The interim guidance to which I refer, which was published in March this year, referred to the Government considering how best the better regulation framework can be delivered

“more effectively over the course of this Parliament”.

Now is the time, surely, to take some action. As their first step, the Government should promise that the six-monthly review of the Coronavirus Act 2020 will be accompanied by a full post-implementation review and that a full cost-benefit analysis of those emergency regulations that it recommends should be kept in place. I hope that the Minister will announce that he is going to do that tonight and thereby help to restore public confidence in the Government’s decision making and the ability of Parliament to scrutinise it, because that is fundamental. I am grateful for the opportunity to put this point to the House.

Parking (Code of Practice) Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Bob Stewart

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 23rd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I hope that is so. One way of establishing that my right hon. Friend is right would be if the Government readily accept amendments 7 and 8. Doing so would reinforce the good will of the Government in ensuring that they will bring forward their parking code in good time.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

A time limit could be put into the legislation so that by such a time this should be done.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

That is exactly the purpose of my amendments.

Amendment 7 would insert, in the first line of clause 1, that the Secretary of State,

“within twelve months of the day on which this Act is passed”,

must prepare a code of practice. That is pretty clear in bringing in a time limit and a requirement. I hope the Minister will be able to give an undertaking that the Government will bring forward a code of practice within 12 months. Some people may be impatient and say that they want it sooner, but under the terms of the Bill the Government have to consult before producing a code of practice, so I think it is reasonable to allow a period for the code of practice to be drawn up and consulted on.

If that amendment goes too far and is too extreme for the Government, amendment 8 is a modification as it would mean that the Secretary of State must “use his best endeavour” to prepare a code of practice. I do not know whether the Minister will say that those words are a meaningless addition, or that they would impose too tight a legal requirement on the Secretary of State.

University of London Bill [Lords]

Debate between Christopher Chope and Bob Stewart

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

This debate would not have taken place had I not blocked this Bill going through on the nod on Second Reading, and the contributions we have had today show that it has been a worthwhile exercise. I do not believe Bills should go through this House without being discussed, particularly when they are opaque. When the Bill was being debated in the other place, it was conceded that the foremost reason and key rationale for it was that it would facilitate universities becoming universities in their own right in London, and it was conceded that that was not clear in the Bill. If something is not clear in the Bill, how are we going to get to the bottom of it unless we start debating it? That is where the value of what we are doing this evening lies.

At the moment, there are 18 self-governing institutions within the University of London’s federal structure, a lot of which are, in many respects, regarded as universities in their own right. For example, if one looks at the 2019 university league tables, one sees that the London School of Economics is third, University College London, of which my late father was a graduate, getting first-class honours in Latin, is 10th—

[Bob Stewart]

Better than you then.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Far better than me. King’s College London is 26th, Royal Holloway is 28th, Queen Mary is 38th, the School of Oriental and African Studies is 46th, St George’s is 52nd, Goldsmiths is 62nd and City, which has recently joined the University of London, is 66th. The college to which my hon. Friend referred, Birkbeck, is 125th. We are told that other colleges, beyond the ones I have mentioned, are aspiring to become universities in their own right. They may include the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, which this league table puts top of the arts and drama institutions. The question I would like to ask is this: what is going to happen to the other colleges within the federation of the University of London? They are probably not going to be in a position to become universities in their own right, and may not even aspire to do so. What is going to be done to protect their position? Obviously, they operate on the basis that they are part of the University of London, with all the prestige that that brings to their activities. A number of the 24 Russell Group universities are in fact colleges of the University of London—King’s College, LSE, Queen Mary and University College. A lot of these colleges are already seen as universities in their own right, so is it really going to make an enormous difference when this Bill is enacted? I am not so sure about that.

I was disappointed that the Minister did not address one of the hot topics of the moment, which is grade inflation. To what extent are these 12 new universities, instantly created as a result of this legislation, going to engage in grade inflation? A report was produced by Reform, and Tom Richmond, the senior research fellow who was its author, has said:

“Rocketing degree grade inflation is in no one’s interest.”

It continued:

“Universities may think easier degrees are a way to attract students but eventually they will lose currency and students will go elsewhere, even overseas.”

It went on to say:

“Restoring the currency of degrees would also mean better value for money for the £18 billion that universities receive each year in tuition fees.”

That report recommended that universities are stripped of their powers to award degrees and that final-year students should instead sit new national assessments for each degree course. The Bill will do quite the reverse by increasing the number of organisations that will be able to award degrees, with the perverse incentive that they will want to be able to make their degrees easier and engage in the grade inflation about which so many people are concerned. I am interested to hear the Minister’s response to that point.

European Parliament Elections Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Bob Stewart

Friday 4th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

That system also seems to work here, which I think is wrong.

[Mr Chope]

It can work here, although my hon. Friend should remember the courageous move made by my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell). He said he did not wish to carry on as a Conservative Member and wanted to change his party allegiance. Before doing that, however, he sought the endorsement of the electorate in a by-election. That was a worthy approach. I hope that the mood is changing and that people will not feel that they can ignore the mandate given to them by their constituents and switch parties without reverting to their electors.

The Bill seems quite complicated in the sense that, although it has only three clauses, one clause has nine subsections, but I have been advised that that is the only way in which we can alter the existing system to introduce the open list system for elections to the European Parliament.

I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend the Minister says. I expect him to preface his remarks by saying that he hopes we do not have any more European elections, but that, if we do, he can assure us that they are going to be more democratic than those we have had in the past.

Illegal Immigrants (Criminal Sanctions) Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Bob Stewart

Friday 4th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to everyone who has participated in the debate, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), who are sponsors of the Bill. I much enjoyed the speech by the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) from the Labour Front Bench. I listened with interest to the Minister’s response, but at the heart of what he was saying, particularly at the end of his speech, was the view that a person who enters this country illegally should be enabled to profit from their illegality by being allowed to stay in this country and not being deported once they have been detected.

[Bob Stewart]

Unless they do something illegal.

[Mr Chope]

Unless they do something illegal, as my hon. Friend says. The Bill would make it clear that the very act of entering this country without authority, often by subterfuge and often after having paid people smugglers large sums of money, would in itself be a criminal act that would merit a deportation, except in the most exceptional circumstances when the Home Secretary determined that it would not be in the public interest.

There is at the heart of this debate a fundamental difference between the approach that I and my hon. Friends would like the Government to take and the one that the Government are taking. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the Conservative party, in its manifestos both in 2010 and 2015, promised that we would reduce net migration to the tens of thousands. In the light of today’s debate, I think that promise needs to be rephrased—we should promise that we will, in the future, reduce illegal migration to the tens of thousands. We already have illegal migration in excess of the tens of thousands—more than 100,000 illegally here. The Minister does not dispute that, so why do we not concentrate on trying to get rid of those people, because we are a million miles away from ever being able to implement the pledge to reduce all migration, both legal and illegal, to the tens of thousands? It has come through very strongly in this debate that the Government are not controlling the things that they could control.

The EU aspect has been brought out in the debate, but the charge of indifference brought against the Government—I know the hon. Member for West Ham also brought it—to some of the key issues has been well made.

The hon. Lady said that my proposals were very bureaucratic, but the people who are here illegally are being exploited and they are vulnerable. Although they are not being prosecuted, under the existing legislation they could be. The fact that they could be prosecuted if they are shopped by the people who control them makes them not want to put their heads above the parapet.

The current levels of illegal immigration are enabling the people traffickers, the exploiters and the pimps to carry on their business, and that is creating a whole underworld of crime. I would have thought that the Home Office was more interested in trying to address that. The Bill would enable all the people currently in that underworld to come forward before 1 July and admit that they are here, and under this legislation they would then not be guilty of a criminal offence. That would send out a clear message to people trying to get into this country that they need to do so before the Bill becomes law, but after that there would be a strong deterrent effect. The Bill would indeed be a fresh start.

The hon. Member for West Ham said that there are 207,000 overstayers—the people who came here legally but are no longer entitled to be here and should have gone back to where they came from. What is being done about them? The Minister puts his arms up, metaphorically, and says, “Well, where are we going to deport them to?” What is absolutely clear is that they do not have the right to be in this country. The hon. Lady referred to some interesting constituency cases, and if someone has overstayed by mistake, we should in most cases be able to rectify that pretty quickly. At the moment, the authorities tend to pick on those people for an oversight in order to demonstrate to the wider world that the Government are taking the issue seriously. The Government are picking on the hapless people who have made a small error. I had a constituency case the other day of a person who accidentally submitted five months of wage slips as evidence, rather than six months. They have now been told that they have to go back to wherever it is and make a fresh application, with all the associated expense. The Government are incredibly petty in dealing with the good people who have made a slip, and they are incredibly poor at dealing with the real villains.

That would all be put right if the Bill received its Second Reading today. However, I fear that it is too late in the Session for the Bill to have a realistic prospect of getting on to the statute book. I therefore seek the leave of the House to withdraw the motion. In so doing, I want to say that I will bring the issue back again, because this is an issue about which the people feel very strongly, and so do we.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Debate between Christopher Chope and Bob Stewart

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

My right hon. Friend knows all about levers, having been a deputy Chief Whip. That is exactly how I envisage this power being used. I am sure that that is why there was an attempt to smuggle it through at the last minute. Now we are, I hope, exposing it for what it is, which is a power grabbed by the Government to try to ensure that they can have the final word and beat their stick against a council that is not doing as they wish it to do.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I am making the assumption that my hon. Friend would support the amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) to have a referendum.

[Mr Chope]

Absolutely. I am very supportive of that amendment, but I have not yet had a chance to talk about it because I am so concerned about amendment 56 and amendment (a). I am not going to restate the case about the referendum, but I think it is a necessary safeguard.

If we look at the history books we see the unintended consequences that can flow from local government reorganisation. It was only because Wandsworth council started a campaign to abolish the Inner London Education Authority that education was given back to the inner-London boroughs, which were then able to gain economic growth as a result of having good-quality education within their boundaries. The same thing happened with the Greater London Council. The Greater London Council was interfering in the lives of the boroughs in inner London and outer London, so those in charge of the boroughs at the time persuaded the Conservative Government to abolish it. As a result, parks such as Battersea park are run by the local authority—Wandsworth council—rather than by a remote authority for Greater London.

If we are not going to put proposals like this to the electorate, we must have the necessary safeguards. None of this stuff was in our manifesto. There was no suggestion that a Conservative Government were going to restructure local authorities so as to try to squeeze out small councils that are closest to the people. If we are not going to test this in a general election and amendment 56 is going to be on the statute book until the end of March 2019, it is all the more important that we should be able to have the safeguard of a referendum—the very safeguard that the Poole People party and the Liberal Democrats have sought, in vain, from the leaders of Poole, Bournemouth, East Dorset and Christchurch Borough Councils.

We are on the threshold of a big spat at local government level between different councils at different tiers and different councillors with different personalities and political parties. This threatens completely to preoccupy local government for the next three or four years. We will look back and say that this all started with the Government wanting to interfere in areas where they should not be interfering at all. They should be trusting local councillors and local people to decide what is best for them. They should not be taking away from Dorset County Council or East Dorset District Council, for example, the power to veto any proposals to change the boundaries in which they operate.

I very much hope that the House will not accept amendment 56 as proposed to be amended by the Government but will push them back to their previous position, which was that this is genuinely for local councils and local people to decide, and the Government are not going to interfere.

European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Christopher Chope and Bob Stewart

Monday 4th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

In that case, Mr Deputy Speaker, I shall raise my voice to make it obvious that this is not a private conversation. My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) would like to have this conversation on the record—it certainly would not be on the record if it took place in the Tea Room. The short answer to his question is that we have a great opportunity, because the FRA has its multi-annual framework approved every five years. If we believe it has the wrong priorities, this is the moment to change it. The Bill could be amended to reflect the concerns of this Parliament.

[Bob Stewart]

I will talk directly to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but also to my hon. Friend on my right flank. It would be impossible to amend the framework. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) said, what hon. Members say will have little impact on the final decision.

[Mr Chope]

I hope that that is not correct. My hon. Friend is demonstrating pessimism—or realism.

Daylight Saving Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Bob Stewart

Friday 20th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

My difficulty is that there is nothing to prevent the Government from commissioning an inquiry and getting the evidence that would enable the hon. Gentleman to reach a decision on this contentious issue. I cannot understand why, if the Government support the Bill, they have not already embarked on getting a body of evidence together. That evidence could then be presented to the House and we could decide whether we thought, in the light of that evidence, that we should make any changes to the clocks. I will refer to that in a bit more detail later.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Well, there is some evidence, is there not? One might say that as a London MP I would say that, but the Greater London authority’s economic experts have suggested that the UK economy would benefit by about £1 billion in all regions, not just in London. There is already some evidence.

[Mr Chope]

Certainly there is, and my hon. Friend refers to it, but I believe that the Government and the promoter of the Bill accept that there is not enough evidence on which to take a decision. The Government are saying they need to gather more evidence, which suggests that the evidence to which my hon. Friend refers is not sufficient for either the promoter of the Bill or the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend states that the politicians lost their nerve. I do not know whether that is correct, but surely the important thing is that the House, with the combined political wisdom of all its Members, ultimately takes the decision. Instead of leaving it, as the Bill does, to the Government to introduce an order—albeit one that would have to be approved by the affirmative procedure —the Government should introduce a Bill having first gathered the evidence. That way we could vote on the Bill in an informed way.

[Bob Stewart]

Let us be quite clear. If there is evidence, as there seems to be, that changing how we run our clocks will save lives—according to the London estimate, it would mean six fewer deaths and 23 fewer severe injuries a year—we have a duty to consider how we manage our time. That is our responsibility as a Parliament.

[Mr Chope]

I do not wish to criticise my hon. Friend in public but he will know that the outstanding Mayor of London introduced facilities to encourage more cycling in London. It is possible to argue, from the figures that I have seen, that as a consequence there have been more injuries and deaths among London cyclists, but I do not think that my hon. Friend would argue that we should ban cycling in London just because it might save lives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for taking the opportunity to explain a bit more about his amendment.

[Bob Stewart]

I accept that point, but my hon. Friend must also accept that there is other evidence. For example, in London, there will be an annual reduction of 80,000 tonnes of CO₂ and energy savings of £20 million a year. We do not know the facts, which is all the more reason why we should have a trial to find them out as best we can.

[Mr Chope]

In that case, my hon. Friend will obviously be very supportive of amendment 12. It would ensure that the facts to which he has just referred would have to be examined by the independent panel. I am sure that our hon. Friend—if we can call him that as a member of the coalition—the Member for Argyll and Bute would be very supportive of the view taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). I hope that amendment 12 will find favour with the Government and with the promoter of the Bill.

That brings me to amendment 23, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, which would require the independent oversight group to have at least one member from each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That seems eminently sensible, because what can the Bill’s promoter or the Government have against having somebody from each of the four nations of the United Kingdom represented on the group?

Volunteering Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Bob Stewart

Friday 10th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Bob Stewart]

I am very sorry.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.