House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Lord Young of Cookham

Friday 6th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

We were discussing these amendments last Friday. There was a Division and, because the House was not quorate, under the relevant Standing Order we have, in effect, gone back to the start. That does not mean that it is necessary for me to repeat everything that I said last week, because that is on the record. However, I will repeat the point that the Bill is a very serious piece of legislation, because it provides not only for the suspension from service of Members of the other place, but for their expulsion on the basis of breaches of conduct. My amendments are designed to ensure that the code of conduct in the House of Lords is linked specifically with the Bill, so that expulsions and suspensions can take place only for breaches of the code of conduct, rather than just for conduct, as currently set out in the Bill.

The precedent for my approach is none other than the contents of the 2012 House of Lords Reform Bill, which did not make progress because the Government were unwilling to allow the Bill to proceed to a full debate and wanted to control it by a guillotine process. That Government Bill specifically linked the code of conduct in the other place and powers to suspend or expel.

Last week, in the interests of brevity, I did not address amendments 6 and 19. To freshen our proceedings, it might be worth referring to those. They amount to the same thing. How do those two amendments fit into the Bill? The Bill provides in clause 1(4) that

“A resolution passed by virtue of subsection (1) must state that, in the opinion of the House of Lords, the conduct giving rise to the resolution—

(a) occurred after the coming into force of this Act”.

That is a proviso to ensure that the legislation cannot be retrospective and is limited by clause 1(4)(b), which says:

“or

(b) occurred before the coming into force of this Act and was not public knowledge before that time.”

We had some discussion of that last week. The issue is addressed in some of the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry).

After the words

“occurred after the coming into force of this Act”,

my amendment 6 would add the words

“and any Standing Orders made under subsection(1)”.

Without the amendment the following could happen. A Member of the other House could behave in a way that people found embarrassing, although their conduct was not in breach of the relevant Standing Orders and code of conduct of the House, but the code of conduct and the Standing Orders were subsequently changed in order to cover that scenario. In other words, without the safeguards set out in amendment 6 and/or amendment 19, it would be possible for the conduct giving rise to the expulsion or suspension to be conduct which, prior to the change in Standing Orders, would not have been in breach of them.

This is a straightforward issue of whether we support the principles of prospective rather than retrospective legislation. In the 800th anniversary year of Magna Carta, I would have thought that we would be very much against introducing more scope for retrospection in our legislation. In fairness to my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), who is promoting the Bill in this place, he said, when I raised this issue in the Public Bill Committee:

“Serious issues have been raised. I will take advice on the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch raised about the issue of retrospectivity between the time that the Act comes into force and the Standing Orders being changed. I cannot promise any amendments, but I will see whether I can get some assurances that shed some light on that.”––[Official Report, House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Public Bill Committee, 4 February 2015; c. 13.]

The amendments are designed to ensure that we have the opportunity to put into the Bill the safeguards that my right hon. Friend, in fairness, accepted were reasonable. I therefore hope that they can be put into the Bill and that he will accept, in particular, amendment 6. I look forward to hearing from him all the reasons why the amendment is technically defective or in some other way falls short of the high standards that he has brought to legislation in this place throughout his very long career. Unless or until I hear what those technical objections are, it would be much better for us to insist that the other place deals with issues relating to discipline on a prospective basis rather than a retrospective basis.

We have had similar issues in our own House. The Standards Committee, on which I have the privilege of serving, dealt with the case of one of our right hon. Friends who was being sanctioned by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards on the basis of a fresh interpretation of the rule book which, prior to that, had never been thought to be fair or reasonable. The Standards Committee said that if there was to be a reinterpretation of our code of conduct, it should be prospective rather than retrospective, and that we could not start condemning people for acts that they had had no reason to believe were in breach of the code.

The issue was whether someone should make a declaration of interest to the House—to a Committee—when they did not have an interest but might be thought by somebody to have an interest. Until now, it has always been thought that that referred to other knowledgeable people sitting in the Chamber or in a Committee. The commissioner interpreted it as meaning that it could apply to anybody—the person on the Clapham omnibus—such that if they heard somebody talk about a particular subject, even though that person did not have an interest that should be declared, it might seem as though they ought to have one, and that if the other person thought they might have an interest, there was a need to declare that. That is now being incorporated into the new code of conduct, but we took the view that it should not be incorporated with retrospective effect.

That is why amendment 6 is not a mere academic exercise; it goes to the heart of what is fair and reasonable in a rules-based organisation. Before people are accused of breaking the rules, they should know what those rules are, and the rules should not be changed after the conduct takes place just so the person can be brought to book for something embarrassing. That is the brief but fundamental point.

It is clear from the discussions I have had with my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire that he has sympathy for the amendment, but he may feel inhibited in accepting it, because the Bill is not his Bill. It does not even belong to its promoter in the other place; it is, essentially, like every Bill that comes here on a Friday, a proxy Bill for the Government, who have a veto over all such Bills.

I hope that the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson) will accept that amendment 6 would be a valuable addition to the Bill, rather than detract from it. If he has not had the chance to clear it with the leader of the Liberal Democrat party, I am sure he should not feel inhibited by that and he should feel able to express his view on behalf of the Government today.

The Medical Innovation Bill is also on today’s Order Paper. It was promoted in the House of Lords by my noble friend Lord Saatchi, who was led to believe, as the Bill was going through the other place, that it had the support of the whole Government, but then we read in the Sunday papers that apparently at no stage did it have the support of the Liberal Democrats, although they were not prepared to say so openly. I assume that the Bill being steered through the House by my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire does have the support of the Liberal Democrats and that they support the principle that we should not legislate retrospectively in relation to conduct that could give rise to expulsion or suspension from the House.

On that basis, I have talked myself into quite an optimistic frame of mind, thinking that the amendment is so compelling that it is likely to be accepted not only by my right hon. Friend, but by my hon. Friend the Minister on behalf of the Government.

[Sir George Young (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for the reasonable way in which he moved his amendment. As he said, we had a one-hour discussion on this group of amendments last Friday, but we did not focus enormously on amendment 6. It is a serious amendment and I hope to be able to address his concerns. I was heartened by one thing he said last Friday, namely:

“I am sure the Bill will get on to the statute book before the end of this Parliament.”—[Official Report, 27 February 2015; Vol. 593, c. 644.]

That remains my ambition.

I hope I can allay my hon. Friend’s concerns about the scenario he outlined. First, as in the House of Lords, so in the House of Commons: Members can be judged for a breach of conduct only according to the code of conduct that was enforced at the time the alleged offence occurred. That is natural justice, so the code of conduct could not be tweaked in order to catch something that happened before the code was changed and then say that it was an offence. I agree with my hon. Friend that that would not be right. The Standing Orders and code of conduct specifically say that it has to be a breach of the code at the time the offence was committed.

I also assure my hon. Friend that the Bill does not amend the code of conduct as to what sort of behaviour is considered to be a breach. The only thing the Bill does is change the penalty that can be applied in the case of a breach. As far as I know, there are no plans immediately to review the code of conduct, although it is kept under review from time to time and brought up to date. The impact of the Bill is simply to change the penalties that apply to a breach of the existing code of conduct.

My hon. Friend is, I think, worried about the gap between the new Standing Orders coming into effect and the Bill receiving Royal Assent. Again, perhaps I can give him an assurance on that. If one looks at the Standing Orders that were activated by the last relevant Act, namely the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, one will see that they were accepted by the relevant Committees in June and adopted by the upper House in July following Royal Assent on 14 May. That gives an idea of the speed with which the Standing Orders can be changed and brought into effect without any long interval.

If one were to make an informed guess as to when the Bill might get Royal Assent, it would be that it might, at the very earliest, be next week, though that would be slightly unusual. It is more likely to be towards the end of this particular Session. It would then not come into effect until three months thereafter, which will be in June. Following our exchange in Committee, I made some inquiries. I would expect work to start on the necessary Standing Orders as soon as possible and that they would certainly be completed by the summer recess, but hopefully before that.

The window that my hon. Friend is worried about is a very narrow window indeed. Given what I said right at the beginning about not retrospectively judging people by a new code of conduct, I very much hope he will agree with that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir George Young]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I express my gratitude to all those who recently took part in the Division, ensuring that the Bill reaches this important and final stage. I am grateful to a number of people who have assisted me in the preparation of the Bill. The Leader of the House of Lords and her staff have been enormously helpful. Baroness Hayman has also briefed me on it. They managed to get it through the House of Lords with more ease than I have managed to get it through the Commons, which is a tribute to their skill, and an acknowledgement of the relative lack of skill when the Bill reached my hands here.

I am grateful to the three Cabinet Office Ministers who have taken part in our proceedings—my hon. Friend the Minister for the Constitution did the Public Bill Committee, my hon. Friend the Minister for Civil Society was here last Friday, and the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson) graces the Front Bench today. I am grateful to the Cabinet Office for the support that it and its Ministers have given to the Bill. Likewise, the Opposition have had a number of different players on the stage—the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) was on the Public Bill Committee, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) was here last Friday, and the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) is on the Opposition Front Bench today.

The Bill was not controversial when it went through the upper House, which is the House to which it applies. Peers’ conduct in the course of the parliamentary duties is governed by a code of conduct. That is binding upon Members. Breaches of the code are investigated by an independent House of Lords Commissioner for Standards, who reports his findings and any recommended sanctions to the Committee for Privileges and Conduct, which hears any appeal. It then goes to the House.

The problem is that sanctions are currently limited in two key ways: a peer cannot be expelled except when he or she has been sentenced or imprisoned for more than a year; and a peer cannot be suspended beyond the end of a Parliament, no matter how brief that period might be. There was no dissent on the second barrel of the gun in the legislation.

The debate has been on the power of expulsion. The House of Commons has the power of expulsion. We use it rarely, but it is there. We can also be expelled by the electorate.

[Mr Chope]

Will my right hon. Friend remind the House when the power was last used?

[Sir George Young]

It was last used in December 1954—Captain Peter Baker. I speak from memory and stand to be corrected, but the power is there. I hope the House of Lords does not have to use its power, but it is there as a possible sanction and an expression of the powers it is prepared to use if behaviour becomes wholly unacceptable.

The Bill is drafted to ensure that the powers apply only in respect of conduct that comes to light after the Bill’s passing. There is no power to impose an additional sanction on misbehaviour that has already been considered and sanctioned under the current regime.

As I have said, the Bill was universally supported in the Lords. Peers from all parties and groups expressed their strong hope that the Bill would pass the Commons during this Parliament—it received an unopposed Second Reading on 23 January in the Commons. It has been extensively considered on the Floor of the House and upstairs. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for ensuring that all aspects of the Bill were properly considered. I hope I have given him the assurances he has sought. I am sorry that I did not do that on the last occasion, when we had a Division.

The Bill is an important piece of legislation and I very much hope it reaches the statute book without too much further delay.

House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Christopher Chope and Lord Young of Cookham

Friday 27th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wilson]

As my hon. Friend knows, this Bill is expressly limited to matters of conduct. That has been made clear in the Bill and throughout the debates in this House and the other place. The power of expulsion that the Bill confers on the other place is similar to the power that we already have in this House. This House has an inherent power to expel Members if it needs to, but the other place cannot do so because, without primary legislation, it cannot override the right of peers to receive a writ of summons. I hope that that deals with my hon. Friend’s point.

The Bill is also already explicitly limited to matters of conduct by subsection (4) of clause 1. It is certainly envisaged that a resolution to suspend or expel would only follow from a report from the Committee for Privileges and Conduct. Proceedings on the Bill in the Lords made it clear that any relevant breach would be linked to the existing code of conduct. The Government therefore do not support the new clauses or amendment 18.

[Sir George Young (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I should like to begin by thanking all my hon. and right hon. Friends who have taken part in the debate for their interest in the Bill. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) for making it clear at the beginning of his remarks that he supported the principle behind the Bill, and I am grateful to the Minister for confirming that the Bill conforms to the requirements of the European convention on human rights. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who, as always, has raised important issues that will need addressing as we go through the legislation.

I should like to put the new clauses and amendments, and indeed the Bill, into perspective. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury said, the Bill basically does two things. It enables a suspension to go beyond the lifetime of the current Parliament, and it enables the House of Lords to expel a Member. It does not change anything else. It does not change the code of conduct or the environment in which the code is administered, and it does not change the interface between the House of Lords and the courts in regard to issues such as exclusive cognisance. So, to some extent, the broader issues that he has raised have already been dealt with in the context of the original introduction of the code of conduct and of how the system works.

The Bill has no direct impact on this House. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said that clauses had been dropped because they were controversial, but there has been no sign so far—certainly in the upper House—of any controversy. Indeed, there was an absence of controversy as the Bill went through. The upper House sees it as an important building block in restoring the reputation of that House, by giving it clear powers to expel a Member whose behaviour is unacceptable. There will be an indirect benefit for this House, in that anything that restores confidence in Parliament is good for both Houses.

I turn now to the new clauses and the amendment. I understand exactly why my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury tabled new clause 1. I understand that in the House of Lords, technically, it is not the Lord Speaker who lays such documents. That is in fact done by the Committee for Privileges and Conduct, which lays on the Table the reports of any investigation into the conduct of a Member of the House of Lords. The Committee is already required to do that by Standing Order No. 68 of the House of Lords, which states:

“Reports from Select Committees shall be laid on the Table and ordered to be printed. Notice shall be given on the Order Paper of the day on which the report is to be considered .”

I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend will agree that we do not need any changes to the legislation or to Standing Orders to enable such reports to be laid.

My right hon. Friend made an important point about natural justice. If he looks at the House of Lords code of conduct, he will see that paragraph 19 states:

“In investigating and adjudicating allegations of non-compliance with this Code, the Commissioner, the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Conduct and the Committee for Privileges and Conduct shall act in accordance with the principles of natural justice and fairness.”

Also, if he looks at those who sit on the Committee, he will see that it is required, by Standing Order No. 77, to include two former holders of high judicial office. I therefore think that we can be confident that the fate that befell poor Lord Lovat will not befall any errant peer; no one will be subjected to a kangaroo court. We can be confident that the principles of natural justice will be upheld. The Standing Order also states:

“A Committee for Privileges and Conduct shall be appointed at the beginning of every session; sixteen Lords shall be named of the Committee, of whom two shall be former holders of high judicial office.”

My right hon. Friend went on to deal with the issues of privilege, and he referred to the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 and an amendment inserted in the Bill that became that Act by the House of Lords. That Bill was a very different animal from this one. The Bill then being considered contained provisions that seriously risked breaching privilege. He may well remember the decisive intervention of the then Clerk of the House, Malcolm Jack, who produced a report during the passage of the Bill expressing the concerns in this House. That Bill explicitly required the production of a code of conduct relating to financial instruments and it set out that it must be laid before the House of Commons. The Bill detailed at some length the procedure of any investigation into a breach of that code and established a new offence of providing false or misleading information about allowance claims.

The short Bill before us is a very different animal and does none of those things. Unlike with the 2009 Act, the Bill has raised no concerns from the Clerks of the Parliaments, nor has anyone raised any concern about its current drafting risking parliamentary privilege. As the Minister has just said, matters of parliamentary privilege do not need to be expressly stated in legislation in order not to be justiciable.

Let me now address the measures proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch on the code of conduct. A code of conduct is already produced, and it is published by the Committee for Privileges and Conduct. That already takes place under Standing Order No. 77. All reports from that Committee that have recommended that a sanction should be applied have included a very clear reference to the relevant provision of the code that was breached in each instance—that is also what happens in this House. The most recent investigation gives us an example of how this is done. The Committee’s report summarises and includes the findings of the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards and the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Conduct, all of which include specific reference to which paragraphs of the code of conduct the Member was alleged to have broken. The most recent report states:

“The complaint alleged that Lord Redesdale breached the Code of Conduct by not registering certain interests in the Register of Lords’ Interests (in breach of paragraph 10(a) of the Code) and by registering certain other interests more than one month after those interests came about (in breach of paragraph 13).”

Other reports on the conduct of noble peers, such as the one on the conduct of Lord Hanningfield, contain explicit reference to which particular breach of the code has taken place. My understanding is that the case of Lord Rennard was not referred because the code specifically says:

“Matters not falling within the Commissioner’s remit include…Members’ non-parliamentary activities.”

That is not wholly dissimilar to the rules that apply to us in this House and it explains why that case did not go before the relevant Committees.

[Mr Chope]

With the greatest respect, my right hon. Friend has not addressed the issue raised by Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who expressly contemplated that this Bill was going to go wider than the existing code of conduct. The purport of my new clause 3 is to ensure that it cannot do that. In so far as it is a belt and braces, why will my right hon. Friend not accept my new clause?

[Sir George Young]

If my hon. Friend looks at the Bill, he will see that clause 1(4) specifically refers to “conduct”. It talks about:

“A resolution passed by virtue of subsection (1) must state that, in the opinion of the House of Lords, the conduct giving rise to the resolution”.

I know that he wants us to be more specific about the sort of conduct, but if one goes down that road, there is a real risk of breaching parliamentary privilege. We may run the risk that if we are too specific in the legislation, the courts may then have reason to look behind the conduct and then the exclusive cognisance that we have at the moment might be prejudiced. That is why the Bill is specifically drafted in order to avoid prejudicing parliamentary privilege.

[Mr Chope]

I imagine that my right hon. Friend was much associated with the drafting of the 2012 Bill. It was a Government Bill and it made a specific link with breaches of the code of conduct. Why can we not make that link? Clause 1(4) currently refers only to the “conduct giving rise”; it does not say that that conduct has to be conduct that is in breach of the House of Lords code of conduct.

[Sir George Young]

Because the moment one puts the code of conduct into legislation, one runs the risk of the courts having another look at it. I am not sure, but the Joint Committee that looked at the Bill the Government published may have recommended that that specific provision be removed—I stand to be corrected on that. The key thing is that the Bill before us does not go beyond the general reference in clause 1(4) to “conduct”, for the very reasons that I have given. I am sure that my hon. Friend, who is a member of the Standards Committee and the Privileges Committee, would not want to run the risk of the courts second-guessing the decisions of the Select Committees on which he serves. Given those assurances, I hope that, on reflection, my colleagues will not press their proposals to a Division.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir George Young]

I have listened carefully to the points made by my hon. Friends in this debate, and particularly to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who in Committee made it clear that he had reservations about expulsion. I have gone back to the sponsors of the Bill and had discussions with the upper House. If anything, the power to expel is almost more important to them than the power to carry on suspension beyond a Parliament, and it would strike at the very heart of the Bill if that provision were removed.

We already have powers to expel if someone is sentenced to more than a year’s imprisonment, but during debates in the upper House it was made clear that many breaches of the code of conduct would not be a criminal offence but are of sufficient severity to justify a Member of the House being expelled. The House of Lords wants the powers that we have to expel a Member if their conduct is unacceptable. Expulsion is different to suspension, and it is important that the upper House should have the power to expel because its Members cannot be expelled by constituents in the way that we can be. We should therefore think hard before we deny the House of Lords a power that it wants and sees as essential in restoring confidence in the institution—a power that the House of Commons already has.

[Mr Chope]

Can my right hon. Friend give some examples of where a power of expulsion is needed?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend raised that point in Committee and I gave some examples that were used in the upper House such as repeated offences, for example, or a criminal sentence of less than a year. Members may take the view that that activity is unacceptable and that the Member should be expelled. Expulsion must be related to conduct, which is specifically mentioned in the Bill. Fears that someone might be expelled because they are a man or a woman simply do not arise because it must be related to their conduct.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said that he was unhappy with some of the decisions made by the upper House. I understand that, but wonder whether his criticism applies to the decisions it has made when it has come to censoring or suspending its Members. My view is that that has been done fairly and impartially. His suggestion that a life peer might be removed by the leader of their party who appointed them would strike at the heart of the independence of the upper House—I wonder whether, on reflection, he wishes to pursue that line of argument.

As for the arguments on public knowledge, the key phrase is in line 15:

“in the opinion of the House of Lords”.

There are real difficulties in defining public knowledge, and it makes sense to leave to the opinion of the House of Lords whether the conduct was public knowledge before. At the moment there is no time limit. In other words, anything that happened before the coming into force of the Bill is potentially within its scope. This is part of the process of rebuilding confidence. If a horrendous offence came to light that had happened before the commencement of the Act, is it right that the House of Lords should not be able to take any action? Far from bringing it into repute, it would bring it into disrepute.

Business of the House

Debate between Christopher Chope and Lord Young of Cookham

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Acting is a proper job, and many Members in the House prove that on a day-to-day basis. I will draw the hon. Gentleman’s concern to the attention of the Home Secretary, who will be at this Dispatch Box on Monday. I pay tribute to the acting profession, which is an important invisible earner of foreign exchange. This country leads the world in providing high-quality actors, and, indeed, some of them have been Members of this House.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

May we have an early debate on the Government’s perverse and bizarre definition of equality? Why are they saying that same-sex partners should be able to have access to marriage while denying the opportunity for heterosexuals to have access to civil partnerships?

[Sir George Young]

As my hon. Friend knows, we have just published a consultation document with the proposition that access to marriage should be available to same-sex couples. We have already made some changes to civil partnerships; there is now access to services in church. During the course of the consultation on that document, my hon. Friend will be able to develop his argument for extending the opportunities in the way that he has just outlined, but the debate has just been launched by the consultation document and the written ministerial statement published a few moments ago.

Business of the House

Debate between Christopher Chope and Lord Young of Cookham

Thursday 9th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I have to say that that is not a matter for the Government—it is a matter for the party—and it would not be appropriate for me to respond to that question at this Dispatch Box.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

When my right hon. Friend had his conversations in January with the chairman of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, was he conducting them wearing his hat as Leader of the House of Commons—in other words, on behalf of Parliament—or as a member of the Government? May we have an early debate on the issue of the separation of powers and how that fits in with the operation of IPSA?

[Sir George Young]

I cannot promise a debate along the lines that my hon. Friend has requested. However, as Leader of the House, I have regular discussions with the chief executive and the chairman of IPSA, as it would be appropriate for me to do, given the responsibilities that I hold.

Business of the House

Debate between Christopher Chope and Lord Young of Cookham

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I believe e-petitions have been a success in building a bridge between people and Parliament and in ensuring that the House’s diet reflects the interests of those outside. I welcome what the hon. Lady’s Committee has been able to do so far in finding time to debate e-petitions and I recognise that the success of e-petitions has increased pressure on it. We are committed to a review of the Backbench Business Committee, and concurrently there is a review of the calendar of the House. That is the right context in which to visit the issue she rightly raises of the increased pressure on her Committee to find time for debates.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Can we have a statement on the rate of interest we will be charging on the first tranche of the loan to Ireland? Some £400 million was paid to Ireland on 14 October. In an answer to a parliamentary question, I have been told that we have not yet agreed on the rate of interest, but that it will be significantly lower than it was at the time we discussed the matter in the House, earlier in the year, despite the fact the Irish Government bond rate is still well over 8%.

[Sir George Young]

I point out to my hon. Friend that we are debating related issues—the International Monetary Fund and the eurozone crisis—in Westminster Hall next Tuesday, when I expect a Treasury Minister to be responding. There will an opportunity for my hon. Friend to raise that question in that debate, which I am sure he will want to attend. I will ensure that the Treasury Minister is forewarned about where he is coming from.

Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund

Debate between Christopher Chope and Lord Young of Cookham

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

If I may, I will make a little more progress, and then I will give way.

The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) suggests that the parts of the motion relating to the Hutton review should be removed. Its implication is that our scheme should not be treated the same as other public sector schemes, and I do not think our constituents would welcome such an interpretation.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

On what basis does my right hon. Friend think that is a fair assessment of my amendment, which seeks to put in the motion the fact that IPSA is independent and should reach its own judgment? That is the effect of my amendment and I am sorry that my right hon. Friend seeks to misrepresent its purpose.

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend’s amendment would delete the following words:

“and accordingly invites IPSA to increase contribution rates for hon. Members from 1 April 2012 in line with changes in pension contribution rates for other public service schemes.”

It is perfectly legitimate to say that one can deduce that he does not want Members’ pension schemes to reflect other public service schemes.

Backbench Business Committee

Debate between Christopher Chope and Lord Young of Cookham

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The Wright report recognised deep dissatisfaction with the current system for private Members’ Bills, which was last considered by the Procedure Committee in 2002-03, so I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s anxiety. My view is that the House might feel it is time, once again, to give this issue proper consideration. The Procedure Committee ought to consider it in one of its first inquiries and look at the procedures and scheduling in the round. That, rather than addressing concerns in a piecemeal way—as provided for in some of the amendments—is the right way to do it.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend referred accurately to our exchange in the last Parliament. During that debate, he was very sympathetic to the argument that, if we have a Session lasting 18 months, there should be more private Members’ time than in a Session lasting for only one year. Surely his argument that private Members will be advantaged by the gap between the Fridays is a bit disingenuous because whether a private Member can get legislation through depends on the time available at Report, which is why we need more private Members’ Fridays.

[Sir George Young]

My response to my hon. Friend is the one that I have just given. Rather than just look at the question of how many Fridays a private Member’s Bill has, one ought to stand back and look at the whole procedure for private Members’ Bills, and ask whether Friday is the right day, whether the pathway through the House is the right one and whether it is too easy to impede progress. That is the right way to approach private Members’ Bills: through a proper consideration by the Procedure Committee, rather than a one-off amendment this afternoon.

Business of the House

Debate between Christopher Chope and Lord Young of Cookham

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am very sorry to hear of what has happened and of the discourtesy that was extended. I will, of course, pass the right hon. Gentleman’s representations on to the Foreign Secretary and see if he can take the matter up with the Indian high commission.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Will it be possible to have a debate next week on my right hon. Friend’s proposal to set up the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, rather than having it go through on the nod later this evening? If we had a debate on it, we would be able to consider early-day motion 79.

[That this House calls on the Government to ensure that any Bill to establish a fixed-term Parliament and to change arrangements for Dissolution is published first in draft and then subjected to pre-legislative scrutiny.]

Moreover, we would be able to consider whether the Committee should be a Joint Committee of both Houses. My right hon. Friend and I both served on a Joint Committee on constitutional reform in the last Parliament, and I suggest to him that a Joint Committee would be more appropriate than a single Committee of this House alone.

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have put down a motion on today’s Order Paper to set up the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee because we thought it would be helpful to the House for that Select Committee to be elected at the same time as all the other Select Committees and to get it up and running quickly. My hon. Friend will know better than anyone else in this House that if he is here at six o’clock this evening and makes a noise, the matter will be adjourned and we will then have to find time for a debate. He is perfectly entitled to do that. The consequence would be that we would lose a bit of time in establishing this new Select Committee, but it would not be the end of the world if that happened—and my hon. Friend could, indeed, raise in that subsequent debate the broader questions about how this proposed new Select Committee would interface with, for example, the Public Administration and the Justice Select Committees.

Business of the House

Debate between Christopher Chope and Lord Young of Cookham

Thursday 27th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend to the Front Bench and his commitment to a sweeping redistribution of powers from the Government to Parliament. May I urge on him rather speedier action for the setting up of the House business committee, which the coalition document talks about being set up within three years? Surely, it could and should be set up this year.

[Sir George Young]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that we propose, in the week after the week for which I have announced the business, to introduce the proposals of the Wright Committee to establish a Back-Bench business committee—which the last Administration singularly failed to achieve before Parliament was dissolved. The three-year period refers not to the Back-Bench business committee but to the House business committee, which is a different proposition. I am as anxious as anyone else to get the Back-Bench business committee up and running. We will table the appropriate motions before the House in good time for the debate, which I anticipate will take place in the week after the week for which I have already announced the business.