Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill Debate
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David Heath
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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
David Heath Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Chris Bryant
Yes—[Interruption.] The Deputy Leader of the House says that he has that all the time. He obviously likes being “kebabbed” in that way—or perhaps that is spatchcocked, I am not sure.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
That is more spatchcocked.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman agrees.
The point is that our amendment is so drafted because, otherwise, a Member might be able to attend half the count in relation to the referendum on the alternative vote, but not the other half in relation to his constituency. We have tabled the amendment so that any Member of Parliament would be able to attend a referendum count. I would hope that most returning officers would not feel troubled by that, but some have explicitly said that the Member of Parliament is not, as of right, allowed to attend.
We have tabled one further amendment that is of significance and not just consequential on others. Amendment (j) relates to new schedule 2 and is about the priority in counting election papers.
Mr Jenkin
I can put them right. As Chairman of that Committee, although I do not act as Chairman in this capacity, I will be in the Aye Lobby myself on new clause 7. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne said, it represents a very modest maintenance of the status quo. That is what this is about—checking an advance or a further incursion of the Executive into the House of Commons. It is a holding position, while my Committee completes its work.
Mr Heath
I think this has been an interesting and illuminating debate. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) for tabling his new clause and for the way in which he spoke to it. I am also particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), the Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee, not only for contributing to this evening’s debate but for his Committee’s work—and that of its predecessor, which, as he rightly said, published the first report.
We have heard from a number of Members of all parties, including from the Father of the House. The hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell) often gets criticised—or, perhaps, slightly cheesed—for his lapidary style, but I know from my experience over many years that he is well worth listening to on many issues. Although I do not agree with everything he says—I do not think he would expect me to—I always find listening to him a useful exercise.
The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who is not in his place at the moment, intervened earlier and sought to persuade the Committee that the Republic of Ireland is the epitome of prosperity, which I am not sure is an argument that holds great water. The hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who is also not in her place, was moved to tell us why during the last Parliament she asked to be a Minister no longer.
The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said repeatedly that the Government of whom he was a part were too slow to take on these issues. Too right they were! They never took on these issues one single bit; there was never the slightest attempt to reduce the size of government or to relax the grip of the Executive on Parliament. It is only since the present Government have been elected that we have been able to deal with some of these issues. He also said, in passing, that he was suspicious that Parliamentary Private Secretaries were not acquainted with the ministerial code. He is quite wrong on that; of course they are—they are given the ministerial code to sign on taking up their positions. That is as it should be. The hon. Gentleman will have to look at the websites himself.
Chris Bryant
I am sorry, but no list of Parliamentary Private Secretaries is currently available on a website or anywhere else. Unless the hon. Gentleman can provide the address of a website that features the information, it is not available.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)
If my hon. Friend looks at not just individual websites for Members of Parliament but the parliamentary website, he will see that it includes the information that a Member of Parliament is a PPS. That information was added to my name within about four weeks of my appointment.
Mr Heath
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting the Committee straight on that.
The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) supported the new clause. The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) made the important point that the oversupply of Ministers was not best addressed by their being put in the House of Lords. I entirely agree. The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex expressed a contrary view, saying that he rather liked having Ministers in the House of Lords, but I am not sure that I agree with him.
Mr Charles Walker
I do not like the idea of lots of Ministers being in the House of Lords, but the fact is that there are currently eight unpaid Ministers there. If the hon. Gentleman does not want them to be there, why on earth are the Government putting them there?
Mr Heath
I will let the hon. Gentleman into a secret: I am not the Prime Minister. It is the Prime Minister who makes appointments. I am simply saying that I do not think we would improve the present position by putting more Ministers in the House of Lords. In the last Parliament, members of the Cabinet—Secretaries of State in charge of Departments—were in the House of Lords, and we had no way of holding them to account. That was an affront to this elected House, and I am pleased that we have put it right.
Let me explain why I cannot support the new clause, although I have a degree of sympathy with the view of the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker).
Mr Heath
I said that it was undesirable, and I believe that it is undesirable. I said that in the last Parliament. I called for Secretaries of State in another place to be brought before this House for questioning, because I think it is wrong for Members of the House of Commons not to have access to those who lead Departments. That remains my position, and I am not going to change it.
Philip Davies
I do not quite follow the hon. Gentleman’s argument. Is he saying that the new clause means that any Secretary of State could not be in the House of Commons, and would have to be in the House of Lords? I see nothing in the new clause that would force a Secretary of State to be in the House of Lords.
Mr Heath
I am not suggesting that that would be the case. I am picking up on points made during the debate, which I think is part of the job of a Minister responding to a debate. The hon. Member for Foyle expressed the hope that a reduction in the number of Ministers in the House of Commons would not result in an increase in the number of Ministers in the House of Lords. I suggested that I agreed with his view. The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex does not agree with it. So be it. That is the nature of debate.
Mr Mark Field
The Deputy Leader of the House has made it clear that he wishes to respond to the contributions made in the debate. I think that one of the most important contributions, with which I entirely concur, came from the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). She considered it highly regrettable that a Bill of such constitutional importance was being rushed through so quickly and so early in the Parliament, in a way that gave the public—certainly those who are interested in these matters—the impression that it was being introduced simply to keep in place the current arrangements introduced by the current coalition. She suggested that it was solely a result of the electoral arithmetic that obtained in May 2010, rather than having been introduced in the long-term interests of Parliament for decades and, indeed, centuries ahead.
Mr Heath
That is a Second Reading point, but it is not a point that I agree with or accept in any way. We have already had extensive debate on the timing of the Bill; I believe we have given that subject a substantial amount of debating time. The most important point is that it is necessary to make rapid progress on the Bill if we are to have in good order both the referendum and the boundary changes suggested in the Bill.
Chris Bryant
Whether or not it is germane is obviously for the Chair, not the hon. Gentleman, to decide, but I am grateful that he has given way.
I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not want to mislead the House. He has suggested that Parliamentary Private Secretaries are listed on each of the websites—[Interruption.] Government Members, and in particular Ministers, groan, but that is perhaps because they want to see the extension of patronage rather than the extent of patronage to be known to the whole of the House. The truth of the matter is that I have looked at the websites of four Departments and there is absolutely no evidence in any of them of who the departmental PPSs are.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Heath
No, not for the moment because I have just said that I want to set out some of the reasons I have difficulties with the new clause.
One point worried me slightly, and I have to say that the hon. Member for Broxbourne and I may have an honest disagreement about it. He appeared to be advocating a complete separation of powers.
Mr Heath
But it was suggested in the speech moving the new clause. The hon. Member for Broxbourne seemed to give the clear impression that he personally would favour a separation of powers, meaning that there would not be this country’s current parliamentary democratic system where we have Ministers drawn from this elected House. Rather, he would prefer Ministers to be drawn from the ranks of those outside the House, which is much more akin to a presidential democracy. [Interruption.] I may be misrepresenting the hon. Gentleman, and if so I apologise. However, if that is his view—and it is a perfectly respectable view—it is not one that I share. [Interruption.] I see other Members nodding because it is their view, and I understand that to be the case.
My second point is that this is not simply an issue about Ministers. It is an issue about patronage and the extent of the patronage of the Prime Minister and Government of the day. That is what we need to address, rather than the narrower issue of Ministers in this House.
My next point is that there is not a simple arithmetical relationship between the number of Members of the House and the number of Ministers: to suggest that there is is to reduce the argument and to take it beyond what is reasonable. Ministerial responsibilities must reflect what the Prime Minister and Government of the day feel they need in order to do their work effectively. There is a relationship between the number of Ministers in this House and the number of others in the House whose positions are created by patronage and both the perception and the reality of the independence of this legislature. That is a perfectly proper comment to make, but there is not, I suggest, a simple arithmetical relationship.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting, therefore, that the Prime Minister of a future Labour or Conservative Government, or indeed the Prime Minister of what we have at the moment, could extend the power of patronage to have as many Ministers as they wish in order to control the political process?
Mr Heath
As I shall go on to describe, what the previous Government did when they reached the buffers of the current restrictions was simply to create all sorts of fantastical posts that were not described as “Ministers” but were, nevertheless, an extension of patronage. We know what the Labour party did when in government and I think we can do better.
Philip Davies
The Minister seems to be saying that these things should be judged on the ministerial work load, as opposed to numbers. I do not know whether this is the case for him and his constituency, but the work load of MPs has increased rapidly in recent years. The Government are proposing to reduce the number of MPs by 50, so this Bill clearly has nothing to do with work load, yet he is giving the distinct impression that this is a simple case of turkeys not wanting to vote for Christmas.
Mr Heath
Without rehearsing arguments from other parts of the Bill—we must not do that—I can say that the interesting thing is that the proposal to reduce the number of Members and equalise constituencies seeks to make some Members who represent very many fewer constituents than others have the same work load as those of us who represent larger constituencies; we comprise about a third of the House.
Mr Charles Walker
The Deputy Leader of the House questioned whether it is wise to put an arithmetical limit on the number of Ministers, but an arithmetical limit of 95 is already in place. Is he suggesting that we remove that and just have a free-for-all in this place?
Mr Heath
No, I am not. I am suggesting that a slightly more complicated relationship is involved than perhaps the simple solution suggests; I have already mentioned one of the factors, which is that this solution does not take into account the position of the House of Lords and the reform of that House in which we are engaged.
Mark Durkan
May I take up the point that the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) raised about the Deputy Leader of the House’s comment that the House should not become concerned with setting an arithmetical limit and seeking an arithmetical formula? The Bill says that there should be 600 MPs and 600 only—not one more and not one less. No flexibility is to be left to the boundary commissions, to Parliament or to anyone else, and constituencies are to be formulated every five years, again on the basis of a tyranny of arithmetic, so how can the Deputy Leader of the House tell us that within this regime of the new arithmetic and the new politics there cannot be arithmetical guarantees on the fixed number of Ministers in this House?
Mr Heath
Again, the hon. Gentleman seeks to draw me back to debates that we have had on other parts of the Bill. However, I repeat that I do not think that there is a simple arithmetical relationship between the number of Ministers in the Government and the number of Members in this House, other than the view, which is my view and that of right hon. and hon. Friends, that we need to reduce the scope of Government patronage. That is something in which we are already engaged.
Daniel Kawczynski
My hon. Friend made a very important point a few moments ago about the staggering number of special advisers that the previous Labour Administration had. I believe that they even had one for timber products and for rain forests, as well as having special envoys for Cyprus and for Sri Lanka. It is slightly hypocritical of the Labour party to accuse us of patronage of this kind when there was so much in their Government.
Mr Heath
No.
Let me go on to the next point, which is the timing of what is being suggested. This is not the hoary old chestnut that used to be described by the former Member for Cambridge, Mr David Howarth, as the doctrine of unripe time—everything was always for the best possible purposes, but the time was never ripe for it to happen. I am not saying that. I am simply saying that various elements of our proposals for reform of the constitutional arrangements and for the politics of this country are moving forward in various pieces of legislation and at various times. By the end of this Parliament, they will be in place, but this is not the right time for this measure.
Let me try to make some progress. The Government are committed—as the fairer Members who have contributed to the debate have already recognised—to passing power from the Executive to Parliament. The hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Backbench Business Committee created by this Government, will, I hope, recognise that that is the case—
Mr Heath
I apologise; I thought that the hon. Gentleman was. I apologise to him and to the House. I hope that it will not prove to be a resigning matter that I mistook him for a member of the Backbench Business Committee. Knowing him to be a fair-minded man I know that he will attest to the fact that this House has already moved the control of much more parliamentary time to Back-Bench Members through the Committee. We have also seen the election of Select Committee Members and Chairs, to which we have already drawn attention in this debate.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has also become the first Prime Minister in history to give up the power to call a general election at the time of his choosing. I think it is clear that the Government are not looking to extend their own influence, but believe on principle that power should be dispersed. Indeed, we will bring forward legislation very soon to disperse more power to local communities and local authorities, enabling them to do their job more effectively.
I have difficulty in accepting that there is a need to put this new clause into this Bill at this time. It is now October of 2010—[Hon. Members: “Well done!”] It is good to know that Opposition Members are engaged in serious constitutional debate. There are four and a half years until the provisions of this Bill will take effect—[Hon. Members: “No.”] There are four and a half years until the provisions of the Bill on the boundary reviews and the reduction in the size of this House take effect. It does not result in an immediate change to the size of this House. We are legislating at speed to allow sufficient time for boundary reviews to be conducted nationally on the basis of a smaller House, but when we have time to reflect, we should use that time.
Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)
Surely new clause 7 would also come into effect in four and a half years, at exactly the same time as the other aspects that the Minister has mentioned.
Mr Heath
Yes, it would, but my point is that new clause 7 does not perfectly encapsulate the purpose that the hon. Gentleman, the Government and I might share of making government fit for purpose in that new Parliament. Given that we do not have to pass this new clause as part of the Bill, it seems sensible to take our time, listen to representations and people’s views, and see whether we can come up with something better.
We have heard very clearly that the issue at stake is the size of the Government’s payroll vote. The proposition we have heard is that the Bill will give the Executive undue numerical dominance in the House and that we must therefore legislate now to reduce the number of Ministers here. It is a numerical fact that if the Bill becomes law, and unless we legislate to the contrary at some stage, the Government elected in 2015 will be entitled to make Ministers out of a higher proportion of the Members of the House. They will not be compelled to do so, but they will be entitled to, and recent Governments have tended to appoint as many Ministers as they can, or very close to that number. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and I have acknowledged before that this issue deserves consideration, and it would not take a great detective to find the number of occasions on which I have said precisely that. On the face of it, it is not desirable that the payroll vote should be expanded as a proportion of the House’s membership. We have said that we will consider how to address this issue and we will do so.
We are told that Governments legislate too much, and the new clause concerns an issue that might be better resolved without legislation. Governments are capable of reducing the number of Ministers without being compelled to do so through legislation. More importantly, perhaps, the payroll vote is often taken to include Parliamentary Private Secretaries, who are not covered by current legislation and who would not be covered by the new clause. It is only by self-denying ordinance that those numbers are limited. Governments have clearly been capable of self-restraint, and that self-restraint would still be necessary if the new clause were accepted. As I have said, under the previous Government we had not only Ministers and PPSs, but tsars, envoys, special representatives, Regional Ministers and assistants to Regional Ministers. A lot of them have been removed but they were all elements of patronage within the House. If it is patronage we are seeking to address, then we have to address all those appointments, not just the ministerial ranks.
Let me repeat a point that was made earlier. Legislation would not cover the number of Opposition Front Benchers, which is also relevant if the concern is that there are too few independent voices from the Back Benches. I accept the principle of legislation on ministerial numbers as a back-stop, but surely the number of Ministers must be a function of need, which is not necessarily related to the number of MPs. When previous statutes increased the number of Ministers in the House, they were unrelated to any changes in the number of MPs: there has never been a clear link or a set ratio. At the moment, there can be one Minister for every 6.842 Members of Parliament or thereabouts. The new clause would enshrine that ratio in law in perpetuity. If it were to become law, the Government could appoint as Ministers no more than 87.692307 Members of the Chamber. That would be the relationship. I merely make the point that I do not believe that a simple arithmetic relationship is necessarily the right one to address.
We should not forget the purpose of having a ministerial presence in the House: we need sufficient Ministers to attend to the business in the House, to make statements, to answer questions, to introduce Bills and to contribute to debates. The House rightly expects the highest standards of accountability from its Ministers and we strive to meet those standards. Indeed, it is often complained that Ministers are too rarely seen when the House discusses issues for which they do not have direct responsibility. That reflects the reality that we demand a lot of our Ministers in this country, both to govern and to legislate.
The question of how many Ministers should sit in the House of Commons is bound up with other questions—for example, considering the number of Ministers in the House of Lords. As the Committee is aware, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is chairing a Committee on reform of the House of Lords. The Committee comprises Members from all three major political parties, as well as from both Houses—[Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Rhondda asks, “What’s that got to do with it?” as though reform of the House of Lords—the thing for which we have been arguing for 100 years—has nothing to do with the constitutional arrangements of this country.
The cross-party Committee is discussing all issues pertinent to reform, including size and composition, and whether the second Chamber is wholly or mainly elected. It will also discuss the position of Ministers in the reformed Second Chamber. Currently, there are far fewer Ministers in the House of Lords than in the Commons, but we will need to think carefully about how the distribution of Ministers may be affected by any changes to the size of the second Chamber, or by the introduction of elected Members.
The Committee is charged with producing a draft Bill early next year, which will then be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. The Government hope that will be carried out by a Joint Committee of both Houses. It is possible that arguments may then be made for either a greater or smaller ministerial presence in the second Chamber. We should wait to hear the views of the Committee.
There is also an argument that the limit on Ministers in the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 is arcane in other respects. For example, it makes no provision for Ministers who might fill the role on a part-time basis or a job share. It is expressed in terms of numbers of individuals rather than full-time equivalents. That should perhaps be part of any consideration.
For all those reasons, although I welcome the debate, the Government are not minded to accept the new clause. We shall reflect on the arguments made today and set out plans once we have achieved some consensus on the composition of the second Chamber, including the number of Ministers there. If it still appears—[Interruption.] I think it is important for the House to hear this. If it still appears necessary, there will be plenty of time at that stage to legislate before 2015. I urge the hon. Member for Broxbourne to withdraw the new clause, on the basis that we shall very carefully consider the arguments he has made.
Mr Walker
I say to new colleagues who were not here in 2009 that it was the most awful experience. We were led up the garden path by a powerful Executive and had our legs cut from underneath us. We vowed that we would never, ever let that happen again. We vowed that we would take control of this place back from the Executive.
I wish I was being braver in my new clause. All I am asking is that when the House of Commons reduces by a mere 50, we reduce the number of Ministers by a mere eight, yet in this age of new politics those on the Front Bench cannot even give us that. Colleagues, this is the night when the new politics will be born, or it will die. Please support new clause 7 tonight, to give new politics some meaning, because it will be driven by Back Benchers—it can never be driven from the Front Bench.
I call for a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—