Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Conor Burns and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Monday 24th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am not sure the hon. Gentleman is right about that because, interestingly, the ability to expel peers very carefully ensured it was not retrospective to the crime or to the sentence. It was right to adopt the principle that it is fundamentally unjust to punish people when they did not know that was the punishment at the time when they committed the offence, so I must oppose his amendment.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

My hon. Friend will see that sometimes when the courts come to sentence someone who is brought before them for an offence committed many years previously, they are obliged to look at the sentencing guidelines that applied at the time of the offence. The case he is making is absolutely right: we cannot have retrospective cases such as this.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and we have seen this in some of the recent celebrity sex offending cases: people have been sentenced under the old rules. That is a good principle of law and this House ought to maintain good principles of law. That is why we should reject that amendment, and reject the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), because they bring the courts into our proceedings, but I think we should accept the amendments of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife that allow more free-flowing recall, because ultimately we should trust the good sense of the British people, especially those in Somerset where most good sense is to be found.

European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Conor Burns and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

They are four British institutions that have had to take the European shilling and sign up to promoting closer European integration to get access to money—institutions that are meant to be under British charity law and politically independent, except when it comes to Europe, when they get handouts to be biased in what they say.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, although the Minister is right that the sums are modest and the grants may well go to organisations of merit that the UK would fund anyway without the need to be given our own money back, the programme will undermine us powerfully as we go to our constituencies to try to persuade our electorate that we are sincere about getting powers back to Britain and putting them to the public in a referendum?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Bill is cretaceous—

London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]

Debate between Conor Burns and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 21st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful for the correction. I did think of saying in my best Eliza Doolittle tones, “’ackney, ’ammersmith, ’aringey, ’arrow, ’avering, ’illingdon and ’ounslow,” but I thought that I had better not phrase myself in that way because, realistically, I am probably more Professor Higgins than Eliza Doolittle in my normal pronunciation.

We have missed out Kensington and Chelsea. They had nothing to say—not a word, not an utterance—about how smart or otherwise their officers should be. Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Lewisham—Lewisham, for heaven’s sake. Would one not have thought that the burghers of Lewisham would be up in arms defending the honour of their council officials? Merton was mysteriously silent. From Newham, nothing. Redbridge? No, not an utterance. Richmond, Southwark, Sutton and Tower Hamlets: Tower Hamlets, a grand and noble borough on the edge of the City, with the great Tower of London nobly looking down upon it, had nothing to say. It has the Beefeaters to look at, so one would have thought it would be proud of having fine people who are well dressed. Then there is Waltham Forest—I am not particularly clear where Waltham Forest is, but it is clearly a London borough of the utmost importance. I apologise to anybody here from that distinguished borough. In Wandsworth, they are a very good lot. They are very Tory, so I expect that they are all splendidly and finely attired in gold braid and so on, so when you see them coming you know that they are from Wandsworth and that they are proper gentlemen and ladies of the borough rather than, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) so rightly reminds me, tatterdemalions.

On clause 9, which will make life so unpleasant for people, we made the basic, simple and clean proposition—that which is easiest and cleanest to absorb—that we scrap the whole thing altogether. Bingo—gone. “Goodnight Charlie,” as cricket commentators say. I am not a cricket commentator, so “Goodnight Charlie” is not usually one of my phrases, but I thought it was apposite on this occasion.

We tabled some other amendments in case the promoters of the Bill decided, through some eccentricity of their own, not to remove the clause. The aim is to ensure that what the clause does is watered down, that it is limited in its scope and that there is a proper burden of proof on the authorities so that they must show that it really is business trading activity and not just an individual. It might be an old lady, for example, who needs to supplement her pension and suddenly finds that she is not allowed to sell her car and is penalised for doing so. Some of the amendments—23, 24, 61 and so on—try to clarify and to ameliorate the harshness of clause 9 and to allow a little free enterprise to be encouraged through the boroughs and cities of London. I am glad to say, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you now know the names of all the boroughs and cities of the noble Greater London area, so I do not think I need to repeat them, although I might do so later if I feel moved and if it is relevant to the issue under discussion.

I want to look at some of the other amendments. It is very disappointing that the city of Westminster, which has been for decades one of the best run cities not just in London but in the world—if they had cities on the moon, it would be one of the best run in our part of the solar system, but as far as I know they do not yet have cities on the moon, so I shall stick to the world—and is a fine, noble city run by great Conservative leaders who provided low council tax, low poll tax before that and low rates before that—

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

Community charge.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend says community charge from a sedentary position, and I admire his pedantry. I am delighted that there are people in this House who are more pedantic than I am. It is an admirable trait and one that I fear is not encouraged often enough.

[Conor Burns]

I was merely trying to correct my hon. Friend’s description of that wonderful piece of legislation. He might well not have heard that our right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Thatcher said she still referred to it as a community charge because she was a great fan of the Polish people and would never have tried to tax them.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

That is, of course, extremely wise, as is anything the great lady says. In ancient Rome, the Senate had a practice of deifying great leaders and if this were ancient Rome, I would propose that that great lady be deified, but as it is not I feel that I had better not, particularly as I am talking about clause 10 of the London Local Authorities Bill, the City of Westminster Act 1999 and amendments thereto on street trading in the city of Westminster.

Those who have been paying close attention to what I have been saying will know that I am now up to amendment 26, which is, in line eight on page six, to put after the first reference to vehicle

“in the course of business”.

That goes back to the crux of what I was saying about clause 9, that particularly pernicious and ghastly clause that none of us like that will take effect in all the boroughs across London, including the two cities. It is even less clear in clause 10, about the city of Westminster, whether it affects only business or residents, too.