Repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

Debate between Christopher Chope and Graham Allen

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

I will give way first to my distinguished colleague from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee.

[Mr Chope]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the argument is essentially between those who believe in rigidity, as he does, and those of us on the Government Benches who believe in flexibility? In a sense, is not that illustrated by what happened in Scotland? Had the Scots voted to leave the Union, the Prime Minister would surely have been required to call a general election, but the Fixed-term Parliaments Act would have prevented him from having that discretion.

[Mr Allen]

The hon. Gentleman is known for being a rather floppy and flexible individual, and perhaps I am renowned for being inflexible in the multitude of compromises I have attempted to make over my political career to secure at least some small reforms in our democracy.

Conflict Decisions and Constitutional Reform

Debate between Christopher Chope and Graham Allen

Thursday 19th June 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Allen]

I know these things may come back to haunt me later.

To be serious, though, many of us—even people sitting in Nottingham, as I do—feel that Whitehall telling us what to do and when to empty our bins, and not allowing us to get on and run our affairs, is an unacceptable imposition in a democracy. Many of us work away in our own way to make the case for rational devolution, wherever we are. If we do not have rational devolution, where do the rational devolvers go? Some of them become attracted to nationalism and see it as the way forward. It is ludicrous that we do not say to such people, and to people such as me in the east midlands, or whatever nation or English region we may live in, that we can run our own affairs.

How do we do that? I have some views of my own, but why do we not have a constitutional convention? Why do we not say that there has been a very serious schism? I hope that that schism starts to heal, but it will heal only if we take serious heed of how we can devolve power not just to Scotland, not because it is a reflex and not because it is a response but because we believe in it. The way to demonstrate that belief is seriously to consider devolution in England. That is one of the things that could come through in a constitutional convention.

There is no one in the House of Commons to whom the Minister takes second place on devolution. If there is one person in the House who has done more for devolution than any other, it is him. Long may he continue. Those Trojan, individual efforts of will and drive need a process. I hope he will be with us for many years, but just in case he is not, we need a structure that allows devolution to take place because, regardless of party, there is a means for it to do so.

Fundamentally, if the English get devolution, it then becomes believable not as an expedient for every other nation but because it is seen to be a principle and something that cannot be taken away. I wish that were not the case, but to prove that devolution is a principle we need to be clear and honest about English devolution. Creating a convention does not have to be a formal thing after an election; it could be an informal thing before an election and it could start to outline where we can go and how we take this process forward.

My Select Committee has been looking seriously at what that means for England and how it might shape things. We have not always come to complete unanimity on it; there are many different views and many different parties. However, we managed to get a sense of direction, if nothing else, and recently we produced our report on the codification of the relationship between local government and central Government. I hope that, as an individual Back Bencher, I can produce a Bill on that matter shortly, which will go a bit further and define independent local government of the sort that is commonplace in every other democracy. People are not like us. We are the weird one in the democratic family, in not having independent local government; in being unable to raise revenues locally to meet our budgets; and in being told what to do by a massively over-centralised Whitehall, in this case. That does not happen in many of our neighbours in north America, Europe and elsewhere in the democratic family.

We can get up to standard—up to modern democratic standards—by doing those things. If we do that; if it is written down and cannot just be thrown away on a whim by the next Government, or the one after that, or the one after that; and if it is part of what we are and what we believe in, which is union and devolution, it will be something that will see us through for a long, long time. That was the heart of what we were trying to say as a Select Committee—working together—when we put forward the paper on our proposal for a constitutional convention for the United Kingdom.

One of the key things that we opened up in our other report on codification of local government was how we finance things. We can have all the nice codes written in Brussels, which get shipped over here every so often and go straight into the waste bin in Whitehall, but if we are really to do this thing we need, of course, to have powers—they are relatively easy to define—but we also need to have finance.

At the moment, local government is financed. Where does that money come from? It comes largely from the income tax payments of every individual in this country. Maybe it is not possible to devise a system whereby we can link income tax to local government. Oh, yes—let us look up the road, and we see that they are doing it. Again, Scotland has led the way, winning over even the Treasury to the concept of assigned local income tax. Right now, it is only 10p of the income tax, but the foot is in the door; it is possible to go further and indeed the Scottish Conservatives have demonstrated how that can be done.

Such an offer—the current offer—has been made to our good friends in the Welsh Assembly. I hope that they will bank that, I hope that they will pick it up and I hope that they will be greedy and come back for more, because all they would be asking for would be to retain some of the income tax in their own nation and put it to work. It would not be income tax on a different rate; it would not be without equalisation; it would not be collected in a different way; and it would not involve setting up a local income tax bureaucracy. It would just be income tax the way that we do it now, but using the equalisation mechanism. If we wanted to use one in England, it would be the Department for Communities and Local Government, which would take that allocation—the amount of money currently spent on local government, paid for by income tax—and equalise it there, before distributing it to the local authorities.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was present yesterday at the Margaret Thatcher conference on liberty, but if he had been he would have heard Dr Art Laffer explaining to those present that in the United States the nine states without local income taxes have grown faster and provide better public services than any of the states that have local income taxes.

[Mr Allen]

That is a very good argument to ensure that, under this new arrangement, we will make sure that there is an opt-out for Christchurch, so that it can carry on without any of the income tax that its residents pay going to its local government, but I suspect that most people would want to continue a system of equalised funding.

The beauty of tax assignment is that it changes nothing in terms of the money values and the collection, but it brings transparency and accountability to the line of account from someone’s pocket to their local government. One of the suggestions in our report is that everyone’s personal wage slip or salary slip should show not only national income tax as x pounds and national insurance as y pounds but local income tax—the element that goes to support their council—as c pounds.

People would look at that and soon start to become interested, once again, in their locality, in their issues, in a bond issue, in joining their local parties and in getting involved with the constituencies, councils and boroughs throughout the land, because they would own and pay for their own local government. That is happening in Scotland, it is soon to happen in Wales, so let it happen in England soon, and then we will be going back again to those two key principles of union and devolution, and of doing what is appropriate at the most appropriate level: at the Westminster level, or the federal level of central Government; at the national level in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; and for us in England, that level or vehicle could be local government.

That issue just happens to be something I care about and feel I have thought through, but there may be dozens and dozens of other issues out there. Again, rather like being convened to discuss a major issue—such as whether the nation should go to war—let us convene on other issues. Perhaps our Parliament could be the convention, but let us convene what we may call a convention to hear the voices, and not pretend that something will go away if a vote goes our way in Scotland, or if Wales or England adopts a particular set of legislative expedients.

Let us hear the voices, and that is all my Committee has been doing. It is a thread right the way through four—nearly five—years of work. To have a fixed-term Parliament in which a Select Committee can set its stall out and start to do some thinking has been useful for us. Not everybody does it that way—that is okay, because people have different ways of running Select Committees—but we have taken advantage of that fixed term to craft some of those answers and some of those debates.

I will say why that is important, and then I will start to wind up. It is not just about whether our Select Committee comes up with a particular answer on a particularly nifty bit of procedure. Our politics has changed. I would say that it had not changed much for most of my life in the House of Commons, but it has changed in the last five or six years—big time. There are lots of reasons for that. But what we now have, and we are in the middle of a big inquiry into voter engagement, is serious voter disengagement. It may be that people are taught this cynicism about our politics, or perhaps they pick it up, or it may be that people in this House have a large share of responsibility for it, but whatever caused it, we are where we are. And we are, as conventional parties, disparaged and disrespected—often with good cause. However, the answer is not to go forward and build a new politics; the answer is currently seen as anti-politics, anti-democracy and anti-the parties in this place. That is the choice that the nation as a whole is considering at the moment and we need to supersede it, because it could be quite dangerous unless we come up with something that goes beyond it.

Looking at the big picture again, looking at the principles again, getting away from tomorrow’s headlines and looking at how we build that future is very important. It may be just about process in how we go to war; it may be about pulling together a constitutional convention; it may be about looking in the year that we commemorate Magna Carta at what the last 800 years have meant in terms of the conflicts that led to Magna Carta; and it may be time for a new Magna Carta. I do not think we should be telling people that. People should be deciding that for themselves. There should be a debate, which all parties should be encouraging, because some of those big principles need to be revisited.

I am worried that, unless we revisit those principles quickly, if we just continue to respond to events, not only will a Scottish referendum dictate our futures reactively but possibly even the next general election will do so. If a quarter of the population votes for a party that does not get any seats, what legitimacy will there be for a party that just manages to cobble together a coalition or manages even to get an outright majority in Parliament? Will that be a strong pillar of democracy?

We have to look at these issues before they happen. My Committee has made a serious contribution to the future of that debate on those issues, on the ones I have spoken about today and on many others. I hope that this House and the Government listen seriously and take us forward, so that we build a stronger democracy and put reactiveness and expediency behind us, because if we do not we may be threatening the very democracy that we say we love.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I had not intended to participate in this debate, but I have been stimulated into action by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen). He and I have been on this Select Committee since the beginning of this Parliament. I pay tribute to him for the work he has done.

We do not agree on everything, as I think will be obvious. Even the Minister responding to our report on having a convention said:

“The Committee itself did not agree on the need for a constitutional convention. According to its report, ‘There is a range of very different opinions. This is true, not only among the witnesses but also among the members of our Committee, some of whom do not accept either the need for further review of constitutional arrangements or that a constitutional convention would be the right vehicle for any such review.’”

I count myself in the last category, as somebody who does not believe that a constitutional convention would be the right vehicle for any review. If we wish to review the constitutional arrangements for our country, that should be initiated by Parliament and by the Government. It is a matter of regret that, for example, we have not yet got a clear response to the McKay commission. These commissions are set up and the Government are often rather slow to respond to them.

The Government also said that they are

“grateful to the Committee…which has added to the broad-ranging conversation that is taking place on the UK’s constitutional arrangements, including the shape of the UK’s devolution settlements.”

It has been a great asset for the Committee to reflect and, in a sense, take part in this conversation. That is probably why the Government’s response to quite a thick report looks rather thin. Unlike most Government responses, it does not deal with our recommendations paragraph by paragraph, but puts all the responses together, forgetting some of the most important recommendations. Anyway, that is how it is.

The response is quite short, is it not, on issues to do with Scotland and the United Kingdom. Where did the Edinburgh agreement come from? The hon. Gentleman says that Parliament should be consulted on when we go war. Was Parliament consulted in advance of the Edinburgh agreement, which is potentially far-reaching? If the result of the referendum in Scotland is a vote for independence, that agreement, which effectively guaranteed that the Scots would be able to have their will, as reflected in their referendum, implemented without question by this UK Parliament, could be the makings of a constitutional crisis. If, say, there is a small turnout or a small margin of difference between one side and the other, people will ask, “Why wasn’t the House of Commons engaged in this?”

A couple of weeks back, I was told by a taxi driver in Catalonia how difficult it is in Spain because of the unemployment problems—this was before the results of the World cup. He wanted Catalonian independence. He said that this year is the 300th anniversary of Spain’s conquering Catalonia and that 1 million people are going to join hand in hand along the old boundary, to try to re-establish the case for a separate Catalonia. The difference between Catalonia and Scotland is that the Spanish will not allow the Catalans to have a referendum.

The hon. Gentleman talks about constitutional arrangements in other countries, but we should not rush off and say, “It’s always much better.” If an established part of a country, such as Catalonia, is not allowed to have its own referendum, one is riding an impossible horse. Spain could say that, before any action is taken, a two-thirds majority will be needed in support of that, but to say, effectively, “You can’t have a referendum”, is rather backward in terms of democratic principles.

Let us give credit where it is due: we have said that the Scots can have their referendum and they are going to have it. Effectively, the question has been chosen by the Scottish Government, rather than being imposed on them by the UK Government. We will have to see what happens in the aftermath of that referendum. Increased powers for a devolved Scottish Administration are being talked about by political leaders at the moment, albeit without their having discussed those powers with the House of Commons or with members of political parties represented in this House. However, people seem to be making ex cathedra statements such as, “Don’t worry, we’re going to do this”, or “We’re going to do that”. I do not know how much that will impress the electorate. However, if there is a vote against a separate Scotland, there will be significant pressure for even more devolved powers.

The hon. Gentleman talks about income tax, but that cannot be separated from the total amount of income that the country has. Scotland seems to have such good public services compared with England because the English are paying significant contributions towards the provision of those public services. One can conceive of a situation in which the English say, “We are not going to sustain that amount of subsidy for Scotland. We are going to reduce the subsidies,” and the Scottish Government say that they will have to increase their income tax. There is a balance between the yield of income tax in Scotland and the amount that comes direct in grant from British taxpayers.

[Mr Allen]

I shall be brief, because I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s contribution, as always. Of course, he should not forget that even if it is just England there will be equalisation. Poorer areas will benefit from the tax take of wealthier areas. That is an all-Union principle, but it could and should apply if we were able to have assigned income tax by nation within the UK.

[Mr Chope]

Equalisation is an inevitable consequence of having a single currency. If there is no equalisation, there will be the sort of problems that the eurozone has at the moment. Who will decide on the detail of that equalisation? In my view the UK Parliament should decide that, rather than ad hoc statements being made, suggesting that this has all been thought through. I fear that it has not been thought through. How a vote for a separate Scotland, if that happens, would impact on membership of this House and what would happen at the end of a fixed-term Parliament, and so on, have not been thought through either. It was significant that Government Members abstained when one of my hon. Friends brought forward a ten-minute rule Bill raising that particular issue.

That example is an indication that a constitutional convention would be an incredibly bureaucratic and time-consuming distraction. It is not what we need. We need to be much more fleet of foot and much more responsive to changing circumstances. It is a cause of immense frustration, particularly among Conservative Members, that an agreement that was incorporated into the coalition and passed into law—namely, that we should have a fairer distribution of constituencies, so that they are of a more equal size—was effectively vetoed by the Deputy Prime Minister and his party. Although the considerations of the coalition programme have been delivered in other respects, they reneged on that agreement. That was a constitutional outrage and we are now within months of a general election where there will be a significant and avoidable disparity between the size of the electorates in the largest and smallest constituencies. We have not even been able to respond adequately to that challenge. The conversation needs to continue, but I am rather with the Government in their response, which said that they do not see a convention as being justified.

I do not know whether my right hon. Friend the Minister was responsible for it, but some of the language in the Government response seems to be opaque in the extreme.

[Mr Allen]

Surely not.

[Mr Chope]

I will quote just one example. Paragraph 3.9 of the Government response states:

“The Government is committed to constitutional reform driven from the ground up. Inevitably, as a result of this approach constitutional reform may not be neat or consistent across the UK. The Government is of the view that an approach which is built on public demand will reflect local circumstances and have a greater chance of success.”

[Mr Allen]

I agree with the Government on that point.

[Mr Chope]

I am not even sure that the Government know what they are saying. As their response states, there is no public demand for a lot of these changes.

Briefly, on Syria and the other report, which is on how we should be engaged in decisions on going to war or entering conflict situations, we have to pay proper tribute to how the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have brought Parliament into the process in a way that it never was before. That happened most recently with the Syria vote, which not only caused an enormous earthquake in our country, but had a ripple effect on the United States and France. I have no doubt that, if our vote had been different, the United States would have engaged in the conflict, and the French would have gone in with them. We were setting a lead for the west in debating that openly. I do not hear anyone now say that we took the wrong decision. That gives those of us who did not support the Government on that occasion considerable satisfaction.

So far as Libya goes, we debated engagement in Libya. Everyone thought that it was the right thing to do, because it would avoid a massacre in Benghazi. That was avoided, but where we are now with Libya is not a pretty place. Next week, we will be debating in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe a report that references the fact that there might be as many as 800,000 people on the Libyan coast waiting to get into Europe, often risking their lives in ramshackle boats to get across the Mediterranean and make a new life. What they all have in common is that they are victims of armed militias, traffickers and so on. It is an unpleasant situation. Whether our military intervention there made the situation worse or not, history will be the judge. It again emphasises, however, that if parliamentarians are involved in the process, it is not so easy for us, having supported engagement in Libya, to turn around and say, “Well, it was an awful mistake.” At the time, with our eyes open, we thought it was for the best, although it might not have turned out that way.

The Committee’s reports are important, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister will be able to add in value. In particular, we need to have an answer to the point that the hon. Member for Nottingham North started with: when will we get what the Foreign Secretary has said he wants us to have, which is an agreement in Parliament that is an effective guarantee for subsequent Parliaments?

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Graham Allen

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

I should like to address my remarks to amendments 4, 5, 6, 10, 11 and 12, which have been included in this group with the new clauses. I am grateful that they have been so included, because they were tabled in Committee but were not reached because we ran out of time. It is therefore an agreeable surprise that I have this opportunity to speak to them today.

My concern has always been that the House should introduce legislation that is clear and precise. That is particularly true of legislation relating to electoral law, which is becoming increasingly complex in this country. It could almost be argued that it now presents a barrier to entry to new people who want to start a political party, to engage in the political process or to contribute to an established party.

Before I address the amendments, I should like to put on record my appreciation of the work of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, whose Chairman, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), is here today. I have had the privilege of serving on the Committee since it was first set up at the beginning of this Parliament. It is frustrating at the best of times to serve on a Select Committee, but it is doubly frustrating when a Committee produces reports to which the Government say they will respond but never do so, and merely bring forward their own legislation, ex cathedra, as they have done with this Bill.

The Committee met in early September to try to deal with these issues, as well as at the end of July, soon after the Bill had been published. We raised a lot of questions with the then Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), some of which have resulted in the welcome tabling of Government amendments in Committee and now, on Report. It would have been far better, however, if this had been done the other way round. We should have had proper pre-legislative scrutiny, consultations and exchanges of views with bodies such as the Electoral Commission, which were established specifically to advise Parliament and the Government on issues of electoral law.

My concern about new clauses 2 and 3 is that, although they recognise the reality of the situation, they would not provide an effective remedy. It is no good saying that there should be a report on the implications of the legislation within a month of its receiving Royal Assent. Nothing would happen as a result of that, because it would be too late to change the law. Regulatory impact assessments should be produced while legislation is being considered by this House, so that we can respond to them by tabling appropriate amendments.

My amendments—modest as they are, as always—were designed to bring clarity to the question of commencement. At the moment, clause 41 provides for the Bill’s provisions to come into effect on the day in which the Act is passed, but with a whole lot of exceptions, some of which are set out. I am seeking to remove those exceptions through my amendments 4, 5 and 6, which would leave out sub-paragraphs (i), (iii) and (iv). Thus clauses 30, 34 and 35 would come into effect on the day the Act is passed rather than on some subsequent day when a Minister might decide to bring forward a commencement order.

Obviously, if a Bill that becomes an Act of Parliament makes certain provisions, which are not implemented immediately but might be implemented at some stage in the future, that in itself creates doubt. Clause 30, for example, to which my amendment 4 refers, deals with

“Extension of power to vary specified sums”

under section 155 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, enabling the Secretary of State, “by order”, to

“vary any percentage for the time being specified”

in that Act’s provisions. That amounts to an order-making power. Why does the order-making power itself need to be made subject to another order-making power? If clause 30 came into effect and into law on the day the Bill received Royal Assent, its provisions would still be subject to the Secretary of State’s having the power to make a variation. If we want to give the Secretary of State that power, why do we need to cover it by saying, “Well, we won’t give him the power to make an order until he has brought forward an order giving himself the power to make the order”? By including sub-paragraph (i) in clause 41, we are making the provisions less direct and more confusing. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s explanation of why he thinks clause 41 is so vital.

Similar arguments relate to my amendments 5 and 6, which would ensure that clauses 30, 34 and 35 came into effect directly on the date of Royal Assent. Looking at those clauses, one again wonders why the Government are nervous about allowing these provisions to take legal effect from the day of Royal Assent. Clause 34 deals with

“Third party expenditure in respect of candidates”,

changing the limit from £500 to £700. If that is a good idea—I am not disputing that it might be—why not include it and implement it from the day of Royal Assent? Why leave everybody guessing about whether the provisions might be brought forward at some subsequent stage through an order-making power? Again, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s explanation.

Similarly, clause 35, dealing with

“Functions of Electoral Commission with respect to compliance”,

changes the general function and substitutes the expression “duties”. It deals with legislation relating to the Electoral Commission. If that is a good thing—obviously, the Government think it is—why is it not such a good thing that it cannot be brought into effect on the day of Royal Assent?

The way in which the Government do legislation nowadays seems to me to be about leaving as many opportunities as possible for further order-making, when the statute book and our democracy would be enhanced if we were able to have greater clarity so that the provisions enacted were actually implemented from the commencement of the Act, alongside all the other provisions. Again, I would be interested to hear what the Minister thinks about that.

My second group of amendments—10, 11 and 12 —relate to clause 42. Amendment 10 would leave out subsections (3) to (6); amendment 11 would leave out subsections (7) and (8); and amendment 12 would leave out subsection (9). Clause 42 is quite important, because it deals with “Transitional provision”. It is quite complex. The explanatory notes state that because of the interaction of the European Parliament elections in the latter part of May next year and the fixed-term Parliament provisions that assure us of a general election in May 2015, we need special provisions to cover that scenario. As explained therein:

“Clause 42 makes provision to deal with this situation by creating”

what is described as

“a bespoke regulated period…that will apply only in relation to the next UK general parliamentary election.”

I am instinctively suspicious of “bespoke” regulated periods or of anything brought into statute in order to deal with a particular scenario; I am much more in favour of general principles that can be applied whatever the circumstances. We are getting into dangerous territory whereby the Government are taking transitional powers, interfering with existing law, and doing so on the grounds that the situation is complicated by the European parliamentary elections next May, while at the same time not dealing with the situation of the Scottish referendum in September next year. I do not understand why there are no transitional provisions for that Scottish referendum; perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us. If we are to have strict limits on spending by registered political parties during a period that includes what amounts to a national referendum in Scotland on whether or not Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom, surely we need some special provision to deal with related expenditure.

I do not understand what these provisions are all about, but the Bill would be better if these specific provisions were excluded from it. In a sense, my amendments could properly be described as probing amendments. As I say, I cannot really understand all the detail of clause 42, but I think the Bill would be better without the provisions which my amendments would remove. I would certainly be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about why we have a bespoke regulated period for one particular scenario, while such a bespoke period will not be necessary in the future. Why has no provision been made for the interaction of the general election and the proposed Scottish referendum?

[Mr Allen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman and would like to put on record my thanks to other colleagues who sit on the Select Committee, some of whom are in the Chamber today. We faced incredibly difficult conditions, providing a report for this House at very short notice, which meant being called back during the recess. I compliment the hon. Gentleman and the rest of my Select Committee for doing that and for giving the House half a chance to debate this issue seriously.

The hon. Gentleman seems surprised that stuff that we are meant to have in front of us—on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—is not in front of us, while we are halfway through the Bill’s proceedings. However, he answered his own question in his opening remarks when he referred to the Government’s failure to provide the proper amount of time, consideration and consultation that we should expect in the House. Let me quote, very briefly, what has been said by the Electoral Commission:

“We await confirmation of the Government’s view of the impact of the Bill on the referendum on independence for Scotland.”

I am perfectly sure that had that impact been known, even today, a great many more Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would have been present. This is an outrageous attempt to push a measure through with great speed, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will continue to emphasise that in his speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his succinct intervention, and also for his generous comments. The points that he has made are exactly the points that caused me to vote against the programme motion yesterday. I think the least that can be done if a Bill has not been given sufficient pre-legislative scrutiny is to ensure that there is sufficient time for it to be scrutinised properly in the House. I may be wrong, but I doubt very much whether we shall have time even to debate all the groups of amendments and new clauses that have been tabled for debate today. As I said earlier, we were not able to reach some of the amendments that were tabled in Committee, although fortunately some of them were tabled again on Report, and are being debated now.

I do not think that I need to make a meal of this, and I am sure that the House will wish to hear further from the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, but I will say that I do not think that new clause 2 really cuts the mustard. All that it says is:

“Part 2 of this Act shall not come into force until the Electoral Commission and the Minister have laid a report before both Houses of Parliament”.

That in itself introduces a concept of indecision. People looking at the legislation will want to know when part 2 will come into force. If things are found to be wrong with part 2 as a result of

“an assessment of the separate and specific impacts of Part 2…on third-party engagement”,

and so on, that will need to be put right before Royal Assent, rather than being left to a post-legislative assessment on a time scale that is imprecise and unspecified. I understand why the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) is frustrated by this whole process, but I beg to differ with him on whether his proposed solution is the right one.

Similarly, as I said earlier in an intervention on the hon. Gentleman’s speech, I do not think that the requirement in new clause 3 for

“Within one month of Royal Assent…full cost projections of the impact of Part 2 on their running costs”

from the Electoral Commission, along with an

“assessment of the administrative impact”

is any good. It would, at best, be closing the stable door after the horse had bolted, and it would not be a helpful substitute for dealing effectively with the substance of the Bill before we give it final approval and it receives Royal Assent. The time to do that is now, and we are doing it. Obviously we hope that those in the other place will do even more of it, and that when the Bill returns to the Commons, it will be much better than it was before.

I end as I began, by regretting that this process has caused us to deal too much with the form and the process rather than with the substance, which is what we should be dealing with in this House.

[Mr Allen]

rose—

[Mr Chope]

I will give way once more.

[Mr Allen]

Before the hon. Gentleman—who is a distinguished member of the Select Committee—ends his speech, may I return, very briefly, to the question of the controlling of expenditure of non-party campaigners? Will he underline the fact that the Electoral Commission does not know what impact the Bill will have on the referendums in Scotland? Are we not in danger of jumping straight into a hornets’ nest if we do not consider that before the Bill is passed, rather than saying “Let us see what happens”?

[Mr Chope]

If I were a member of the Government faced with such advice from a body on which the Government rely to give them advice, I would say “We will withdraw the Bill, or at least delay further consideration of it until we have received a proper response.” That, I think, would have been the mature way in which to deal with the matter, if I may put in it in a somewhat patronising way.

There are many examples of Bills that have been held up between their Committee and Report stages. Normally they have been held up for a good reason, namely that the Government have been having a rethink, discussing with third parties and other interests what is the best solution. Here we have a glaring example of something else. Effectively, the statutory adviser on these issues has said to the Government “We do not know what the implications are. Please help us. We can help you, but we need a bit of time if we are to do so.”

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am always an optimist. I hope that, before the end of this evening’s proceedings, we shall have heard the Government say that they wish not to press the matter to the end, but to give the House a chance to engage in further debates, and that they will table further amendments.

Political and Constitutional Reform Committee: Wright Reforms

Debate between Christopher Chope and Graham Allen

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

Proper pre-legislative scrutiny can be undertaken in many ways, including by Select Committees, elected Committees, or a properly elected Bill Committee. It is not beyond the wit of Members of this House to come up with a system that is far better than having colleagues sitting and reading their newspapers, being told what to do and not to intervene. It is our role to intervene during the progress of legislation in order to make it better, and we should not be told by the Government that that is inappropriate behaviour for Members of Parliament.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one way not to do pre-legislative scrutiny is for the Government to publish a Bill one day before we rise for the summer recess, and then in the first week back to have Second Reading followed by Committee stage on the Floor of the House on three successive days, without any chance for Members to scrutinise the Bill?

[Mr Allen]

The hon. Gentleman—indeed, my hon. Friend from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee—makes a valuable point, and I suspect he alludes to the lobbying Bill that is being produced with great haste, although no response has been sent to the Committee about the work it did over a year ago in examining that Bill and helping to make it better. Now we are being told that there is no time for pre-legislative scrutiny. We are trying to squeeze it in this afternoon, when we have been told that Members can go home—“It’s a one-line Whip, you can all clear off”—and we are trying, desperately, to get proper parliamentary scrutiny of a Bill that has changed considerably, and answers have not been given to the sensible proposals for improvement made by the Committee. We are then meant to come back after the break and dive straight into Second Reading and consideration of that Bill. It is apposite that at this moment we have a good example of how not to pass legislation, and to produce, in effect, a dangerous MPs Bill, as opposed to a dangerous dogs Bill.