Speaker’s Statement
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Before you reflect on this, I acknowledge that we have known each other for over 30 years—in many ways our personal political lives seem to have gone off in very different directions in the course of that time—and I acknowledge the kind remarks you made to me on another occasion outside this House last week, but I am one of the Members who have formally recorded my anxiety about your partiality in the Chair, and I think the right way to do that is to do it formally.
Having done that, like my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), and having noted the narrow terms in which you gave your ruling today, I think those terms in your coming to your judgment are reasonable. However, would our knowing what the response is to the letter imposed on the Government by this House to request an extension be a sufficient change of circumstances for you to reconsider the conclusions you have come to today?
Mr Speaker
As the hon. Gentleman will know, repetition is not a novel phenomenon in the House of Commons, including when perpetrated by me. I have made the point often—forgive me, but I make it again—that I tend to subscribe to the dictum of the late Lord Whitelaw in these matters. He famously used to say, “Personally, I think it is better to cross bridges only when I come to them”. It is a hypothetical question, and I would have to reflect on it and make a judgment in the circumstances of the time.
I do not want to fall out with the hon. Gentleman, and I appreciate his courteous opening remarks. He will not be surprised to know that, although I absolutely defend his right to his opinion, I do not accept his characterisation of my speakership. I have tried to do the right thing by Parliament. Sometimes people like it when it goes their way and sometimes they do not when it does not, but that is my honest approach. If he disapproves of it, I am sorry about that, because I have known him a long time, but I will live with that. I do not mean that in any discourteous or patronising way, but I will live with that. It is one verdict, and there will be others. However, I have made the judgment I have made, and let us wait and see how events develop.
European Union (Withdrawal)
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Crispin Blunt
If my right hon. Friend recalls, the Foreign Affairs Committee’s report on no deal two weeks before we gave notice under article 50, which was unanimously agreed across a Committee wholly split on the merits of the issue, concluded that the damage that would be done by the failure to get an agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union would be greater for the European Union in material terms, but greater for the United Kingdom in proportionate terms. However, the absolute damage being represented on the other side is at stake, so his negotiation—
Mr Speaker
Order. It is very selfish if an intervention is so long as to prevent other people from getting in.
Leaving the European Union
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Mr Blunt, having heard you—it was rather unwelcome—from your seat, perhaps we can now hear you on your feet.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
I rather suspect that given all the enthusiasm that Brenda of Bristol had for the last general election, the prospect of an extension of this debate for several months will be received with dismay by the country. However, underneath that dismay is massive uncertainty. There is a real price for extending this debate, and I urge my right hon. Friend to stick to her guns and make sure that there is a choice between her deal and leaving to World Trade Organisation terms. That is the choice that the European Union faces, which hopefully will bring it to end the backstop, and that is the choice that the Labour party should face as well.
Points of Order
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for what she has said. I do not know whether there is any precedent for such advice having been issued, but my understanding is that it has not previously been issued. I said what I did in response to an earlier point of order on the basis, once more, of clerkly advice. I know that the Clerk would concur with that view, as I do.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This year will be 30 years since we first met in the final of the competition to be selected for Bristol South, and both of us have been on something of a journey since then. When you were elected as Speaker, you said you would serve for nine years. There has been the controversy of the recommendations of the Dame Laura Cox inquiry into the House of Commons, and you have been defended, particularly by two right hon. Opposition Members, on the importance of your being sustained in position beyond the nine years in order to oversee the discussions and denouement of the Brexit issue.
The uncomfortable conclusion, Mr Speaker, given the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) and the implications of the precedent that you have set with this ruling today, is that many of us will now have an unshakeable conviction that the referee of our affairs, not least because you made public your opinion and your vote on the issue of Brexit, is no longer neutral. I just invite you to reflect on the conclusion that many of us inevitably will have come to.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of view. He is quite right that we met, I think, in the anteroom of the Bristol Conservative Association headquarters at 5 Westfield Park, Redland, Bristol in July 1989, so we have known each other for a long time and I take in a perfectly good spirit what the hon. Gentleman has said.
I have explained in response to previous points of order and adduced evidence in support of my argument, including that proffered by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), that I have always done my conscientious best to champion the rights of Members wishing to push their particular point of view on a range of issues and, perhaps most strikingly, on this issue. That is what the record shows. I have always been scrupulously fair to Brexiteers and remainers alike, as I have always been to people of different opinions on a miscellany of other issues. That has been the case, it is the case and it will continue to be the case.
As for the other point that the hon. Gentleman made, he will know that I was re-elected unanimously by this House on, I think, 13 June 2017, for the Parliament. If I have a statement on that matter to make, I would of course make it to the House first. I think that most people would accept that that is entirely reasonable.
Pairing
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Speaker
Well, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) does not exactly look heart-warmed by the prospect that redemption awaits him.
LGBT Action Plan
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Some of us have come quite a long way since 1997, and that also applies to the position of my party, of which I am now inordinately proud because of the 75 recommendations in the action plan and because of the way in which the survey has thrown up the prevalence of the trans issue. The number of trans people who took part in the survey clearly makes it entirely appropriate for us to make this issue a priority. Mr Speaker, I know that as president of the Kaleidoscope Trust you will be delighted with the balance of resources going into the Commonwealth and internationally from my right hon. Friend’s Department to enable our missions to directly support the groups and the very brave people who are fighting for the changes in their society that have been achieved over the past five or six decades here.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman understands me well, and I thank him for that gratuitous reference.
Yemen
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Along with the rest of the UN Security Council, we are unanimously on the side of the Saudi-led coalition, which is trying to bring order to Yemen in the face of the Houthi rebellion. As we have heard from the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Yemen, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the port accounts for 70% to 80% of the imports into Yemen. Surely, our policy should be to aid the coalition we are supporting to take control of the port and the access into Yemen.
Mr Speaker
Order. We are short of time, and I have tried to make the point that if people asked short questions and got short answers, we would get through everybody.
Heathrow
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Speaker
Order. I remind the House that there is another urgent question to follow. After that we have the business question and then two moderately well-subscribed Backbench Business Committee debates, so there is a premium on brevity. What I am looking for is not preambles, but single sentence—preferably short sentence—inquiries, to be exhibited in the first instance by the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt).
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend the Minister as astonished as I am that as distinguished a lawyer as the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), could advance an argument that is so utterly threadbare in respect of the rather limited defence this agreement gives to Heathrow airport and its private investor supporters if the Government change their policy?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow(6 years ago)
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Mr Speaker
No, no. No further point is required. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
Let me say to the House this: I have been advised by the Secretary of State for Transport, who beetled up to the Chair to catch a word with me during Prime Minister’s questions, that the statement is commercially sensitive. I have no reason to seek to gainsay the right hon. Gentleman. I do not know whether it is, but no doubt it has such an element. It is regrettable if there is not very substantial notice for the Opposition. [Interruption.] Order. I am dealing with the matter. I do not need any help from the Secretary of State. I am advised that the Opposition did in the end have approximately half an hour’s notice of this statement, and I am happy to hear from the Secretary of State if he wants to respond to the point of order.
On the point about the making of Government statements on Opposition days, this is by no means unprecedented, including under previous Governments. However, if I may say so—and I will—it is highly undesirable for there to be statements on very substantial public policy matters, in which the House will doubtless be interested, on an Opposition day. One looks to people traditionally with responsibility for safeguarding the rights of the House, of whom the Chair is one, but not the only one, to take these matters very seriously. This is an undesirable state of affairs, and if it were to happen on further occasions, a great many hon. and right hon. Members, not to mention interested parties in the Opposition day debates outside the Chamber, would view it, frankly, as an abuse. I hope that that message is heard loudly and clearly on the Government Front Bench, at the highest level, by the people in particular by whom it needs to be heard. If I have to make the point again on future occasions, and to use the powers of the Chair to facilitate the rights of this House in other ways, no matter what flak emanates from the Executive, I will do so in the future, as I have always done over the past nine years, and no one and nothing will stop me doing my duty by the House of Commons.
If the Secretary of State wants to respond to the point of order, he is very welcome to do so.
Mr Speaker
Very well. I will indulge the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt).
Crispin Blunt
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Seven minutes ago, The Guardian’s “Politics live” with Andrew Sparrow said:
“East coast rail franchise to be brought back under public control.”
It appears that someone has broken an embargo, or something has gone wrong, because I guess that that is what the Secretary of State’s statement is to be about. Will you put investigations in place to find out why that statement has been made before we have had the opportunity to listen to it from the Secretary of State?
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and I respect his sincerity, but it is not for me to initiate inquiries on this matter. I say two things to the hon. Gentleman whose point I otherwise take very seriously. First, let us see what is in the statement, and whether in fact there has been a leak. Secondly, were it to transpire that there had been, that would be a matter to be laid squarely at the door of the Department whose statement it is, and it would be incumbent on the Secretary of State in those circumstances to initiate any such inquiry. At this point, we should hear the statement. I thank the Secretary of State for approaching the Dispatch Box to deliver it.
Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
In making my contribution towards the end of this debate, I want to reflect particularly on the speeches that were made from the Government Benches at the beginning. My hon. Friends the Members for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) brought us back to the fundamentals of parliamentary accountability. Parliament controls the laws, supply and confidence over the Executive. Through those mechanisms, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset made clear, we have the ability to hold the Government firmly to account.
The history of the Armed Forces Act 2006 and, underneath that, the evolution of convention regarding Governments coming to Parliament and our flexible constitution have brought us to the place where we now have the expected accountability of Governments coming to Parliament in order to seek authorisation for specific military actions. But this is merely convention. If we examine the occasions on which the Government have come to this House to seek parliamentary authority in order to reinforce their prerogative powers, we find that they have happened because of the political situation and the Government’s assessment of what they need to reinforce their authority. In 2003, the then Labour Government and Tony Blair had a minority of support from their Back Benchers for the proposed action in Iraq. That made it necessary for the then Government to seek parliamentary authority to reinforce their political position.
Regarding the authorisation that Parliament gave to the Government of the day, I sat on the Opposition Benches during that debate, listening to the then Prime Minister make his argument, thinking that it was a bizarre state of affairs. My former colleagues in the armed forces were on the start line, in the final stages of their battle procedure before they conducted the invasion of Iraq, in which the British armed forces were responsible for about a third of the frontline with our American allies. It struck me as extraordinary that we were having a two-day debate in Parliament that was ending at about 10 o’clock or midnight, about six hours before that operation was due to commence, and that Parliament was going to say yes or no to that operation. On those grounds alone, I thought that it would be irresponsible to my former colleagues for us to suddenly say, “No, you’ve got to stop guys. We have decided that it’s the wrong thing to do.”
As we now know from history, it probably would have been better had we said no. But we should have been saying no infinitely earlier than the immediate military commencement of a major strategic operation like that. We know that Tony Blair gave his commitment to President Bush in April 2002. We know that our military were being instructed to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and to be part of that operation from the summer of 2002. This is where Parliament and the conventions that we have appeared to have established collide with military and operational reality.
I am in total agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) about the circumstances under which one seeks parliamentary approval for operations of the kind that we saw last week. He and I jointly authored a pamphlet, which every colleague in the House received in July last year, on how Britain should respond to chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Our answer to the parliamentary problem that the Government faced was some kind of pre-authorisation motion, so we would have had a debate about the circumstances that the Government faced last week and they would have then been able to act within authority that had been given by Parliament for the kind of action involved. Indeed, that parliamentary approval itself might have acted as a form of deterrent, with the Syrian Government then knowing that they would face action involving the British armed forces in response to the kind of situation that the Americans had already reacted to before.
All this involves the development of a convention about the Government coming to this House. I do not think that a war powers Act is the appropriate answer. As my hon. Friends have made clear, this House does have the essential elements of control over the Executive—
Mr Speaker
Order. We are immensely grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I will call the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) on condition that he sits down at 3.53 pm—the start thereof, no later. Is that agreed? It is agreed.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Would there be an answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question on the industrial estate if any new prison fully incorporated the work of ONE3ONE Solutions, which was designed more than six years ago to increase the productive and commercial output of prisoners? The numbers given by the Justice Secretary just now suggest that we have not made much progress in the number of prisoners who are working. Will any new prison include ONE3ONE Solutions, and how are we getting on with prisoners working overall?
Mr Speaker
Particularly if any prospect of their working is in Port Talbot, upon which the question is focused.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
May I take my right hon. Friend back to the question from the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire)? Quite apart from commending the quality of the BBC programme she mentioned, may I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the fact that global policy on drugs prohibition is beginning to change, in the face of the evidential failure of the policy since the 1961 UN single convention on narcotic drugs? Will she look at the evidence that will emerge from the United States and Canada on the legalisation and regulation of cannabis markets there, as well as decriminalisation in Portugal and elsewhere—
Mr Speaker
Order. We have heard the gravamen of the hon. Gentleman’s inquiry. We are a little clearer now and are immensely grateful.
Mr Speaker
Order. That was quite enough. We are very grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Crispin Blunt and John Bercow(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Earlier, the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) referred to evidence that Lord Hague gave to the House of Lords EU External Affairs Sub-Committee about the European defence arrangements after Brexit. He said that the best proposal was a paper written by the former Chair of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. Has my right hon. Friend seen that paper or would he like to?