Debate on the Address

Debate between David Amess and Charlie Elphicke

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I congratulate the Government on the Gracious Speech and the measures in it. There are two proposals about which I am concerned—House of Lords reform and the televising of court proceedings—which I shall address in a moment. First, however, I have to say how lucky we are to have a monarchy in this country. We tried a presidency under Tony Blair, and what a disaster it was: indeed, we are still suffering the consequences of that presidency, which took us into an illegal war with Iraq, destroying the United Kingdom. How I wish that I and the other 17 Members of the House who wished to impeach him at that time had been successful. Now, he is going around not only our country but the rest of the world still earning money at our expense.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Has my hon. Friend noticed that as well as earning money at our expense Tony Blair does not seem to pay an awful lot of tax?

[Mr Amess]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, Tony Blair gave evidence at the inquiry last year and I hope that when the report comes out, the matter will be dealt with. To have him as a special peace envoy in the middle east is absolutely ridiculous.

So, I rejoice in the fact that we have a monarchy. I always think that Conservative Queen’s Speeches are better than Labour Queen’s Speeches and today is no exception. I am delighted that we heard today that the Prime Minister is determined to reduce the deficit and restore economic stability. I enjoyed the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) who was right to remind the House what a disastrous economic legacy Labour left us.

I absolutely agree with the remarks that a number of Members made about policies that we talk about in this House that are not mentioned on the doorstep by our constituents. Last Monday, some Conservative Members got together and had a party to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the election of a Conservative Government on 9 April 1992. At that party, which the Prime Minister attended, we were delighted to launch a pamphlet called “Basildon—Against all Odds”. The Prime Minister generously referred to the victory in Basildon, and I was delighted that he visited my old constituency yesterday and talked broadly about policies because I think we need to reflect on the things that took us back to government in 1992. There in Basildon, 20 years ago, voters locally wanted to support what were then the Conservative party’s policies. What were those policies? Giving every woman, man and child the opportunity to make the most of their God-given talents. I know that 20 years later our country and the world have changed but I say to my Conservative colleagues that we should reflect on the policies that brought us back to government in 1992 and I recommend that they read “Basildon—Against all Odds”, which is a very good pamphlet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Amess]

I suppose the get-out clause is that we did not have a solely Conservative Government, but a coalition, so there was a compromise. I certainly was never in favour of reform. In the other place, there are women and men of wonderful experience, who bring great value in a revising Chamber. I am totally opposed to having the second Chamber in competition with this place.

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is being extraordinarily generous in taking interventions. Is not part of the problem that the House of Lords used to be a brilliant revising Chamber but then Tony Blair, who is now to be found in various parts of the world making money and not paying tax, stuffed it full of cronies and wrecked the flavour and excellence of that House? He made it the broken place it is today because of Labour’s galactic incompetence in government.

[Mr Amess]

I agree with my hon. Friend that there are now so many peers that apparently they cannot all find a place for prayers. It is crazy. There are too many Members in the House of Lords—nearly 1,000. It is a complete mess and I do not want this Chamber to waste hours and hours talking about something on which we will never agree. It is certainly not No. 1 in the list of priorities of the British people.

I welcome the proposal for a National Crime Agency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) is an expert in such matters and I shall not compete with him; I will speak in more simplistic terms. Phasing out the National Policing Improvement Agency is a good thing. Creating a National Crime Agency will help further to tackle serious crime in the UK. As we have seen over the past year, our border forces and urban police forces can be overwhelmed, so the establishment of the agency will help to ease the burdens and protect us against one of the most serious threats facing this country—organised crime. It costs the United Kingdom between £20 million and £40 million in social and economic terms, and affects the most vulnerable people in society. Only yesterday, we heard the judgment in the terrible case of girls who had been groomed. I hope that the Bill can deal with that sort of issue and tackle it head-on. I hope the whole House will come together to support such welcome measures.

On the defamation Bill, I do not know how honourable colleagues feel, but I am certainly libelled morning, noon and night and do not have the money to defend myself. A range of concerns have been raised about the detrimental effects that the current law on libel is having on freedom of expression, particularly in academic and scientific debate, the work of non-governmental organisations and investigative journalism, and about the extent to which this jurisdiction has become a magnet for libel claimants. I do not want to upset my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), who is a Queen’s counsel, but the law has become so expensive in this country that I do not know how ordinary women and men can possibly defend themselves.

Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of our constitution, but it does not mean that people should be able to ride roughshod over the reputations of others. When someone writes to the newspapers these days, the letter is published on the internet and in no time at all there are very insulting comments posted on the website, particularly if the letter is about a politician, and we do not seem to have any legislation to deal with that. Therefore, our defamation laws must strike the right balance between protecting freedom of speech and protecting people’s reputations, and that includes those of Members of Parliament. I know that we are No. 1 on some people’s hate list, but the overwhelming majority of Members of Parliament are here for the right reason and do a jolly good job, and I am getting a little fed up with our being continually insulted and considered fair game, which I think is very wrong indeed. I want slander on the internet to be prevented. Her Majesty said that legislation would be laid before us. I know that we already have 14 Bills and four further measures, but I hope that there will be time to introduce legislation to deal with slander on the internet relating to comments on media articles. I think that there should be much tighter controls and more severe punishments.

There is no point in any of us being Members of Parliament unless we have some real power, and over recent years our heads have been down and we have lost so much of our power, so we need to reassert it. I hope that the Government will consider introducing a measure to enable far greater scrutiny of public bodies. I will give the House one example. I have been on a mission in relation to Essex police—two Essex colleagues on the Government Benches are present—because I knew from the outset that the chief constable of Essex was chosen from a shortlist of one, which is absolutely outrageous. It has happened and nothing has been done about it; we just accepted it because we are more concerned about hacking and reform of the House of Lords. How could the Essex police authority allow the chief constable to be chosen from a shortlist of just one? That is unacceptable.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Is that not why elected police and crime commissioners are such a good idea, because we can get the right chief constables and make police forces much more effective and responsive in cracking down on crime?

[Mr Amess]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and that is what I was about to say. I hope that in November there will be a huge turnout in Essex and we will elect a very good commissioner.

Another point about Essex police is that I have had to resort to using the Freedom of Information Act to get confirmation that the chief constable was chosen from a shortlist of one. Why should a Member of Parliament have to use the Freedom of Information Act? Then there is the closure of police stations. When the Leigh-on-Sea police station was closed there was no consultation. The consultation took place in the car park of a large supermarket in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), which is on the other side of town, and received about 20 responses, which meant that they could close the police station. That is not good enough, which is why I think Members of Parliament should get power back from some of these public bodies. I have been trying to find out more information about Essex probation service, the Crown Prosecution Service in Essex and a range of public bodies. Members of Parliament are scrutinised all the time and have to submit themselves to the electorate. Why cannot we have more scrutiny of at least the management of public bodies? I hope that the Government might consider introducing a Bill to deal with that matter.

I said earlier in my speech that I was concerned about the proposal to introduce the televising of sentencing in major criminal trials. I thought that the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, who mentioned it earlier, was going to agree with me entirely, but he threw me when he said that it works well in Scotland. As far as I am concerned, once the TV cameras get into our courts it will not end there. Coverage will get wider and soon we will be like America, with coverage for the trial of the basketball player who shot someone, or whatever it was he did, and the cameras panning across to see the jurors. I think that cameras would be a very retrograde step.