Backbench Business Committee
David Heath Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
I beg to move,
That—
(1) this House endorses the principle that parties should elect members of the Backbench Business Committee each Session and thereafter when a vacancy arises in a secret ballot of all Members of that party by whichever transparent and democratic method they choose.
(2) Standing Order No. 122D (Election of Backbench Business Committee) shall be amended as follows—
(a) line 7, at end, insert—
‘(ba) No Member may be a candidate for the chair of the committee if that Member’s party is represented in Her Majesty’s Government.’;
(b) in line 12, leave out from second ‘of’ to end of line 14 and insert ‘a party represented in Her Majesty’s Government and no fewer than ten shall be members of a party not so represented or of no party’;
(c) line 28, leave out paragraph (2);
(d) line 64, leave out sub-paragraph (b); and
(e) in the Title, after the word ‘of’, insert ‘chair of’.
(3) Standing Order No. 152J (Backbench Business Committee) shall be amended as follows—
(a) line 7, leave out paragraph (3) and insert—
‘(3) The chair of the committee shall continue as chair for the remainder of the Session in which that person is elected as chair unless the chair is declared vacant by the Speaker under the provisions of Standing Order No. 122C (Resignation or removal of chairs of select committees) as applied by paragraph (3) of Standing Order No. 122D (Election of Backbench Business Committee).’;
(b) in line 12, leave out ‘and members’;
(c) line 21, at end, insert—
‘(6A) The Committee shall have power to invite Members of the House who are not members of the Committee and who are of a party not represented on the Committee or of no party to attend its meetings and, at the discretion of the chair, take part in its proceedings, but—
(a) no more than one Member may be so invited to attend in respect of the same meeting;
(b) a Member so invited shall not move any motion or amendment to any motion, vote or be counted in the quorum.’.
As the House will be aware, the Select Committee on Procedure, which is chaired with such distinction by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), is conducting a review of the Backbench Business Committee. The Government look forward to contributing to that review and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House looks forward to giving oral evidence. I am sure that the whole House will look forward to the conclusions set out in the review and the Government will certainly consider any recommendations very carefully.
Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
I am grateful to the Deputy Leader of the House for his preamble. In the light of what he has said, why do the Government consider it inappropriate to leave this motion until after the Procedure Committee has reported?
Mr Heath
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that question. Having already said what a splendid fellow he is, I am happy to address the issue that he raises. We expect the Procedure Committee’s conclusions to be of great value, as they have been on a number of other topics. I want to emphasise that today’s motion is not intended to pre-empt the review—[Interruption.] Well, it simply does not. It makes three changes that need to be made this Session in order to take effect before the next elections for members of the Backbench Business Committee and therefore before the completion of the review. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, those changes arise in part from points made in evidence to the Procedure Committee’s inquiry into the 2010 elections and that Committee itself envisaged changes as regards minority parties being made in advance of the review.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for giving way and I apologise as I am chairing a Committee upstairs at 4.30 pm and will therefore be unable to stay and listen to the end of his remarks. As a member of the Procedure Committee, I thought I would raise the notion that the question of whether the Committee should be elected on a party basis is a difficult matter that I shall be considering very carefully during the forthcoming proceedings of the Procedure Committee. In the meantime, given that he is proposing to make that change without such consideration having taken place, I have no option other than to vote against the Government this evening.
Mr Heath
I am sorry to hear that, obviously, but it is for the House to make that decision in the light of today’s debate. There would be very little point in our determining that we should have made a change to the process of election after the elections had been held for the next Session. It seems appropriate to me that the House should have the opportunity, as it does today, to consider the matter and come to a conclusion. The will of the House on whether it wishes to make the suggested changes will then prevail.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that it is for the House to make its decision as this concerns House of Commons business. Will he tell us whether Government members and parliamentary private secretaries are being whipped on this business, and if so why?
Mr Heath
The right hon. Gentleman will have to ask his right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary about the position on whipping. There are motions on the Order Paper for debate later today that very much reflect the Government’s position on the conduct of business. On those matters, it is quite clear that right hon. and hon. Members who are members of the Government will be whipped to support the Government view, and they are of course here as a consequence.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Given what the hon. Gentleman has just said, it is perfectly possible that the Government will get this motion through, without any of the amendments that have been tabled, on the back of a payroll vote. Will he undertake that if that does happen and the Procedure Committee then decides that it wants to take the House down a slightly different route, he will table motions to allow that to happen in the next Session?
Mr Heath
I have already indicated that we will want to see the Procedure Committee’s conclusions. It has been the practice of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and myself to bring forward motions to allow the House to consider the Procedure Committee’s recommendations. I do not think we have anything to be ashamed of in that respect as we have been very careful to ensure that the House has opportunities, where possible, to determine these matters. Obviously, we shall have to wait and see what emerges from the Committee in due course.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way but he still has yet to explain why he and the Government are pre-empting the Procedure Committee’s findings, particularly given one of its last known findings, at paragraph 59 of its latest report, which stated:
“We have received no adverse comments on the arrangements for the elections to the Backbench Business Committee”.
Can the Government justify their position?
Mr Heath
There was limited scope for complaints about elections to the Backbench Business Committee because, certainly on the Government side of the House, there were no elections: the Members who serve on the Committee were elected unopposed. However, the Procedure Committee proposed that we needed to consider the position of minority parties and I assured Members from the minority parties when we first debated this matter that we would look into this and come back with proposals. I think we would be deficient in our response to the House if we were not to have that debate before the opportunity arises to vote again on the Backbench Business Committee.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for using the word “deficient” because his proposals for the minority parties are clearly deficient and unsatisfactory. Our being given observer status on a Backbench Business Committee—a Committee of the House—as though we were second or third-class citizens of the House is totally unacceptable to us, so if this is all about the minority parties and the smaller parties, he can forget it.
Mr Heath
I am rather minded to forget it. I went to a great deal of trouble to address the specific issue that the hon. Gentleman asked me to consider when we first debated this. He asked for his party and the other minority parties to be allowed to put up candidates for election as the Chair of the Committee. That is what we are proposing today and he says, “Forget it.” Well, we shall see whether he supports the contention when it comes to the vote.
Mr Heath
I think I should make a little more progress as I have yet to explain what the proposal is, but I will come back to right hon. and hon. Members who wish to contribute.
The motion aligns the method of election to the Backbench Business Committee with that for other Select Committees. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) might feel aggrieved that he does not have representation on all the Select Committees of the House, but he does not because, on the basis of the formula, he does not have enough party members in the House to have that level of representation. The motion provides protection against unwarranted interference by a future Government in the election of the Chair—something that some hon. Members were very concerned about. We propose to give the House an opportunity to determine that issue today. The motion provides also for participation by the minority parties, however ungrateful they may be, in the Committee.
Nearly a month ago, the Government’s response to the Procedure Committee’s report was published. It stated quite explicitly that
“the Government believe that it would be appropriate for the House to address the anomaly whereby members of the Backbench Business Committee other than the Chair (unlike those of other select committees) are elected by the House as a whole rather than by Members of the political party to which they belong before the next elections of members. The Government propose to allow time for consideration of proposals to this effect towards the end of the current Session.”
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Should not a strong and confident Government accept whatever kind of scrutiny the House thinks is appropriate? Does the hon. Gentleman not get the mood of the House today? Everyone who has spoken so far today and, I think, those who have not spoken believe he should withdraw the motion and await the proper conclusions of the Committee?
Mr Heath
I shall make a little more progress. I have been reasonably generous in giving way to hon. Members, and I will no doubt be sufficiently generous again.
The Government could not have been clearer about their intentions. There has been some suggestion that the motion has been sprung on the House without notice or at the wrong time. I suggest that that contention is without merit.
When moving the motion which led to the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee on 15 June 2010, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House pointed out that
“For the first time in over a century, the House will be given control over significant parts of its own agenda.”—[Official Report, 15 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 779.]
That shift in control is one which this Government facilitated and to which they remain fully committed. The subjects of debate and the form that motions for debate take on the equivalent of 35 days a Session, including at least 27 days on the Floor of the House, are now properly a matter for the Backbench Business Committee. The debates chosen by the Backbench Business Committee have helped to raise the public profile of the House of Commons, and increased public awareness of the crucial role of the House in holding the Executive to account. The subjects chosen might well not have been chosen by the Government, or indeed by the Opposition, and have been challenging for us. That is part and parcel of the switch of power that the Wright Committee envisaged.
The Government are committed to the continuing role of the Backbench Business Committee, and to providing the time to that Committee in a Session of normal length which is set out in Standing Orders. The motion before us today does not affect in any way the Committee’s powers or its role.
The first change addresses an anomaly in the method of election of members of the Backbench Business Committee. At present, all members of the Committee are elected by the whole House. This is wholly appropriate for the Chair of the Committee, who represents the whole House, but it may not be appropriate for the other members. It is wrong in principle that, for example, the choice of Opposition Members on a Committee could be decided by the votes of Members on the Government Benches, who will inevitably outnumber them.
I read a comment in the electronic media earlier today—because of the anomaly, why do we not change the rules for all the other Select Committees to match those for the Backbench Business Committee? The reason is obvious. If we were to do that, the Government of the day would control who the Opposition parties put on Select Committees. The House would rightly be outraged if that were the position, yet that is the position that we currently have with the Backbench Business Committee.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
No doubt my hon. Friend has seen the evidence submitted by Dr Meg Russell to the Procedure Committee, in which she expressed her view that to go down the route he has chosen
“would be very much contrary to the spirit of what the Wright Committee intended.”
Is not the answer that the Backbench Business Committee is a special committee, not like an ordinary Select Committee, and that its Chair should be selected in the same manner as the Speaker and represent the whole House, as indeed should its members? That is what Wright intended. Why is he departing from Wright?
Mr Heath
As I said when responding to the debate on the original motion to set up the Backbench Business Committee, Wright is not holy writ and should not be treated as such, not least because there are internal contradictions in the Wright report, just as there are sometimes in holy writ. Therefore, the House has to take a view on what is in the best interests of its procedures. That will be for the House to decide. I simply contend that it is a strange situation where the biggest party represented in the House can override the interests and decisions of other parties in deciding who its representatives on the Committee will be. I would have thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex had confidence in the ability of his own party’s procedures —I am afraid I have no specialist knowledge of them—to make a proper determination of who should serve on the Committee on its behalf.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex that different considerations apply to the Chair of the Committee, as he set out, which is why we propose that the Chair should continue to be elected by the whole House, with one proviso: we think that the Government should not provide the Chair, for perfectly obvious reasons. The situation is exactly analogous to that of two other Committees—the Standards and Privileges Committee and the Public Accounts Committee. There is a strong argument in favour of the Committee’s decisions not being seen as the result of some sort of internal collusion between the Government and the legislature, and I think that the clearest way of indicating that they are not is to ensure that the Chair comes from a party that is not represented in Government.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
So, the Deputy Leader of the House can of course give us an assurance that the Government are not seeking to change the rules now because existing members of the Committee have proved too independent.
Mr Heath
I can give that clear assurance, because I have absolute confidence that the members elected by the party groups will be every bit as independent as those elected by the whole House, and perhaps even identical in person. What I am trying to do is prevent the potential abuse of that process, which could clearly happen under the present rules. I hope that each of the parties, through their internal mechanisms, will have sufficiently robust structures in place to ensure that the Whips, if they come running to Back-Bench Members to have a particular Member elected to the Committee, will be robustly told where to go. But we shall see, because that is internal to the various parties and their internal democratic processes.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I am struggling a little to follow the argument the Deputy Leader of the House is making. If it is the case that the present Chair and members of the Committee have been conducting themselves excellently, why change now in a hurry when we are still waiting for a report? If the Government are so concerned about this—perhaps there is a point I have overlooked—why did he not bring in the arrangement he is proposing at the beginning of the process? Why are we bringing it in when the process is well under way, given that the people who have been running the Backbench Business Committee appear to be doing such a splendid job?
Mr Heath
I have already said why. We are doing that now because we are about to have elections, and we do not change the rules of elections after elections. It is normal practice, and normally more constructive, to change the rules before elections, rather than afterwards.
The hon. Gentleman asks why we did not start from a different basis. I accept, and the House is fully aware, that we started with the draft proposals from the Wright Committee, and it was obvious then that what applied to the Backbench Business Committee was different from what applied to any other Select Committee. The precautionary principle in elections to other Select Committees exists for a reason: to stop interference—in a party political way, between the parties—as to who on Select Committees should represent Members. I think that is quite an important principle, but the House must decide whether it considers it to be an important principle. If the House considers it to be nugatory, the House will vote accordingly.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
I realise that my hon. Friend is keen to bring the rules of the Backbench Business Committee into line with those of other Select Committees, so why does he not propose to bring it into line with Standing Order No. 151(11) so that its members are elected for the whole Parliament, rather than for a Session at a time?
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman raises a separate issue, one that we explored at length when we set up the Committee. The answer is that the Committee is a Committee of the House which deals with the topical issues before it, and it is right that Back Benchers have a regular opportunity to express their view on its performance; I make no apologies for that. It is sensible that the House has such control, because if we were to elect the Committee’s members for an entire Parliament, the House would lose that opportunity to reflect on, or to see, whether the Committee was conducting itself as the House had hoped.
That is entirely different in kind from the responsibilities, within a Select Committee, of Select Committee members, who need such continuity in order to do effectively their job of holding to account the Department in question. To my mind there is a clear separation, but the hon. Gentleman may take a different view. I am simply confident that the House is capable of making decisions about the way in which it conducts its affairs, and of doing so without the benefit of distortions of any kind in the system. That is what is proposed today.
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman says that I have singularly failed to answer the question, but I have answered it several times; he simply does not like the answer I have given. There is a subtle distinction between not answering and others not accepting the answer. As I have said, the answer is that this is the opportunity we have before the elections.
The Procedure Committee will not report before the elections are due, and I do not want to put any further pressure on it to complete its report in a hurry, because these are very important matters on which we want the full benefit of its advice. It is no good crying after the event if it proves that we have made an error in our election of Members to the Backbench Business Committee. That is why the House has been given the opportunity today to consider whether it wants to make the changes that I have suggested.
The motion achieves that—
John Hemming
On that point, the problem so far in getting Procedure Committee debates on to the Floor of the House has been the Government allocating time for the Backbench Business Committee so that the Committee can allocate time to debate a Procedure Committee report. If the Government were to promise to allocate time immediately to debate a Procedure Committee report, there would be no difficulty in getting that through in time for the elections.
Mr Heath
There is one small difficulty with that, which is that the Backbench Business Committee is precluded from putting forward time for amendments to its own constitution. That is why it has to be a matter for the Government, and why we are providing time today, and would provide time in future, to consider the results of the Procedure Committee report.
The motion achieves what I have been describing by a simple endorsement of the principle that parties should elect members of the Backbench Business Committee each Session, and thereafter when a vacancy arises, in a secret ballot of all Members from that party by whichever transparent and democratic method they choose, following the same approach as that agreed for other Select Committees on 4 March 2010. In consequence, we are, if the House agrees, removing the provisions in Standing Orders for elections of members of the Committee other than the Chair. The amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and others would remove the provisions whose purpose I have described and retain the current arrangements. Given what I have said, it will be no surprise that I will not support those amendments, but it is open to the House to do so if it wishes.
The second element of the motion relates to the Chair of the Committee, and I have already indicated why I believe that it introduces a beneficial change. The Government believe that it would not be appropriate for a Member from the governing party, or parties, to be nominated for the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, because that might give rise to the Government’s appearing to seek to influence a key position in the House in an improper way. Having an Opposition Member chairing the Backbench Business Committee headlines the Committee’s independence not only from the business managers—of whom I am one, on behalf of the Government—but the influence of the Government party generally. My right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) stood for the post of Chair in 2010, when the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) was elected, and his wisdom and experience have subsequently been deployed in his service as Chair of the Administration Committee. However, conventions evolve over time, and we think the time is now right to recognise that the Chair should be held by an Opposition Member.
At the same time, we are taking the opportunity to remedy an anomaly in the Standing Order that was identified by my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) and referred to by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire during the debate on 15 June 2010—namely, that at present no Member can be nominated for the Chair unless he or she belongs to a party with at least 11 Members of this House. I acknowledged on that occasion that my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman had identified a possible defect in the Standing Order that needed to be considered, and I am pleased to move this motion to remedy it—[Interruption]—despite the protestations of the hon. Gentleman who, it seems, is never satisfied. We propose to replace it with a provision that requires cross-party support of comparable strength but allows Members from minority parties to stand for Chair of the Committee.
Finally, the motion makes provision for hon. Members from parties not represented on the Backbench Business Committee to participate in its work. The motion allows the Committee to invite an hon. Member who does not belong to a party represented on it to participate in its proceedings, including deliberative sessions, but not to vote. It would be for the Committee to decide whether to invite one hon. Member for a Session or a shorter period or to invite different hon. Members to different meetings. [Interruption.] The Government believe that this effectively addresses minority party concerns—although clearly, according to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, it does not—in a manner consistent with the principle that the composition of the Committee should reflect the party composition of the House. The hon. Gentleman protests from a sedentary position that it does not reflect it because he wants full membership of the Committee, but that is not the way in which this House has determined its membership of Select Committees, whereby such membership reflects the composition of the House as a whole. It seems to me that that principle of proportionality is something that the House would wish to maintain, because otherwise it becomes open to the House to distort the composition of the House as represented in the membership of its Select Committees, and I am not sure that the Backbench Business Committee should be separate from that consideration.
We made it clear in our response to the Procedure Committee, which was published last month, that we do not agree with the proposal for full membership for a minority party Member. Our proposal allows for the participation of hon. Members from different parties, as and when the Backbench Business Committee considers it appropriate, whereas the amendments would provide for only a single hon. Member to participate. That is why we oppose the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire and others.
The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) would apply the principle of whole-House elections to the election of a minority party Member. That is instructive about the conduct of this whole debate. Were the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire and the amendments to them tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley successful, the larger parties in the House would determine not only which Member from the minority parties would appear on the Committee, but which party would be represented. That would put the larger parties in the inappropriate position of deciding whether it should be a Member from the Democratic Unionist party, the Scottish National party or Plaid Cymru who was selected for the position. That amply demonstrates what is wrong with the current system of elections.
In conclusion, the motion will change the elections for the membership of the Backbench Business Committee and how Members participate in its work in a way that enables the Committee to continue to work effectively. It will make those changes at the right time—in fact, the only possible time—before the membership is settled in the next Session. The motion will facilitate the Committee’s effective operation in the future and I commend it to the House.
Pete Wishart
I am sorry; I do not have enough time.
I could stand for the position of Chair of the Committee, but I have as much chance of becoming its Chair as the Deputy Leader of the House has of becoming the SNP Member for Somerton and Frome. There is no chance whatsoever of a member of one of the minority parties being allowed—
Pete Wishart
What we were making such a song and dance about was membership of the Committee. I should be delighted to be able to stand for the position of Chair of the Committee as a member of the Committee, but for me to be able to stand for that position without having a place on the Committee is utterly and absolutely ridiculous.
We in the minority parties will have to have a think about this. We cannot have a Backbench Business Committee of some of the House; it must be a Backbench Business Committee of the whole House. We decided that we would involve ourselves with the Committee over the last two years, despite our great disappointment about what happened. We were reassured by the Chair, who has been fantastic with the minority parties, and who has been able to work with us to ensure that we could at least secure some of our debates. However, we will now have to take a good long look at our relationship with the Committee. I suggest to other members of the smaller parties that we should be saying, “If you, the House, do not want us, why on earth should we have anything to do with you?” If this is to be a Back-Bench Committee consisting exclusively of members of the Government parties and the Labour Opposition, why should we have anything to do with it at all?
We must ensure that the Backbench Business Committee is a Committee of the whole House. The present arrangements are nonsense, the idea of observer status is absurd, and I appeal to the House to back the amendments and ensure that we have equality in the House. There are five other political parties here. There is more than just a Labour Opposition; there are other members, there are other parties, and we must ensure that we are properly represented in the House. The Wright Committee has been a disaster for the smaller parties. We have effectively been turfed out of Select Committees, and now the same is happening with other Committees in the House.
I urge Members to back the amendments. I urge them to ensure that there is justice for the smaller parties, and to ensure that we have a Backbench Business Committee that represents the whole House.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
It is a good thing that Chief Whips are not required to speak in these debates. We have heard some full tributes to the work of the Backbench Business Committee from the Deputy Leader of the House and his shadow, and I would be very surprised if the Government Chief Whip would be able to utter the same words of praise and thanksgiving for the work of the Backbench Business Committee, because the Committee has been an utter pain for the Government Whips Office. It is no good the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) nodding her head, because the Committee has been bringing to the Floor of the House issues that very often neither Front-Bench team wanted brought here—they wanted to suppress them. That has been the great strength of this Committee.
If the coalition Government have a problem with who was elected to the Backbench Business Committee or how it was elected, they have nobody to blame but themselves, because some posts went uncontested. That shows a remarkable lack of assiduousness, given how the Whips Offices usually try to influence such elections. We should have no doubt that this operation today is an exercise designed to reduce the accountability and responsiveness of the Committee.
Let us briefly consider the detail of the motion. Most important is the proposal that the regularity of elections will reduced: they will be held once per Parliament. If this motion goes through, the election in the new Session will be the last this Parliament—
Mr Jenkin
I beg my hon. Friend’s pardon if I misunderstood things, and I stand corrected.
The motion is also determined to reduce the way in which the membership of the Committee reflects the views of the whole House, on the basis of the spurious idea that parties voting for Members of other parties have a malign intent. The Chair is to be chosen from the Opposition, but that will reduce the Chair’s authority. The great authority that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) has is that she was elected as much by the votes of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats as by the votes of the Labour party. She was not a choice predetermined by the Standing Orders of this House and it was not a predetermined choice that she was chosen from her party.
For all those reasons, we should want to defend the existing system, not least because the Wright Committee intended the election of the Backbench Business Committee and its Chair to be carried out on a different basis from the elections to the other Select Committees. The Deputy Leader of the House keeps saying that he has given a reason for needing to pre-empt the findings of the Procedure Committee. He may have given a “reason”, but it is an excuse and a motive; it is not a justification for pre-empting the findings of the Procedure Committee.
I wish to conclude by making a brief point. Those of us from the previous Parliament who went through—how shall I describe it?—the purifying fire of the expenses debacle came out of it determined that things should change in this House, that politics should change and that at least some of what happens in this House should be taken out of the ghetto of the Westminster political parties talking to themselves. Are we now seeing this House reverting to type? Are we seeing the vested interests beginning to reassert themselves? I urge this House to be ever more vigilant to make sure that that does not occur and ever more vigilant because we are seeing today how determined the forces of darkness in politics can be.
Business of the House
David Heath Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Sir George Young
Putting out a written ministerial statement is not “sneaking it out”.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
Nor is answering questions in the House.
Sir George Young
Nor, as my hon. Friend says, is answering questions about it on the same day. There could hardly be a more open process of bringing a matter before the House.
Finally, under the Labour Administration there was an e-petitions system that ended up in Downing street and got nowhere. We have introduced a much better system, whereby if a certain threshold is reached the petitions are eligible for debate. Some of the best debates that we have had have been as a result of the e-petitions system, introduced by this Government, and we are proud of it.
Sittings of the House (20 and 23 March)
David Heath Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
I beg to move,
That—
(1) there shall be no sitting in Westminster Hall on Tuesday 20 March; and
(2) this House shall sit on Friday 23 March.
On Tuesday, the House agreed to a series of Adjournments up until January 2013, which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House set out in the business statement on 9 February. I think the whole House will agree that it is for the benefit of the House that Members, staff and the House authorities are given as much certainty as possible of recesses, as far in advance as possible, to enable the effective scheduling of hon. Members’ other work and major work projects in the House, among other things.
If passed, the motion will achieve two things in relation to the forthcoming business of the House in March. First, it provides that there will be no Westminster Hall business on Tuesday 20 March. It will not have escaped Members’ notice that that is the date scheduled for the attendance of the two Houses on Her Majesty in Westminster Hall for the presentation of Humble Addresses, as my right hon. Friend announced in the business statement on 19 January. I am sure Members will recognise the need to suspend regular Westminster Hall sittings on that day, which is entirely in line with precedent.
Secondly, the motion provides that the House will sit on Friday 23 March. That proposal was announced in the business statement on 9 February, together with our reasoning that it would allow the continuation of the Budget debate while still providing time for the Backbench Business Committee to schedule a debate on the day before the recess had it wanted to, as has been past practice.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making the Government’s position clear. Will he confirm to the House that all dates announced are always provisional? The House agreed to the dates set for Adjournments on a “forthwith” motion, which could not be debated or amended. This debate is therefore the first opportunity that we have had to debate and amend a motion.
Mr Heath
Obviously, “forthwith” motions can always be objected to if hon. Members have problems with them. I assume from the silence when that motion was moved that there were no objections. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that all future business is always provisional until we get to the point at which it is no longer provisional, and it is open to the House to change its mind. However, I say again that it is very helpful to have some certainty, not only for Members, who have busy diaries to arrange, but for the staff of the House, who will also wish to make arrangements. I believe it is good practice to try to provide that certainty as far as possible.
I understand that my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) do not entirely share what I had hoped might be a consensus on the matter. They have tabled amendments showing plainly that they do not share that consensus and we will discuss them today. I also note the point of order made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on Tuesday. He was very keen to make his point then, but perhaps not so keen to make it today when we are actually having the debate. His absence will be regretted by everybody. He clearly felt very strongly about the motion but is otherwise engaged today.
The Opposition sought to amend the motion on Tuesday in order that the House would sit on Wednesday 28 March. Let me make it plain that the Government are not opposed to sittings on Wednesdays, but the proposal for the House to rise on Tuesday 27 March was announced when the calendar was last issued in October 2011. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough made the point that the calendar is always provisional because it is always subject to the progress of business. But my point, again, is that the Government are conscious that we have announced recess dates and Members and staff will have made arrangements for the Easter recess. It would now be inconvenient, at least for some, to change them.
I have heard reports that the Opposition—laughably in my opinion—are accusing the Prime Minister of running scared from Prime Minister’s questions, which is a triumph of hope over experience on their part. They say that that is why we have scheduled the Friday and not the following Wednesday. As I said, that is an entirely laughable proposition and it is totally without basis in evidence.
I have had the benefit of considering the evidence and it might help if I enlighten the House on it. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House perhaps alluded to some of this information in business questions. The frequency of Prime Minister’s questions per sitting day has risen in this Session compared with the last Session of the previous Administration, so there is no reasonable accusation that we are manipulating the calendar so that there are fewer Prime Minister’s questions sessions.
It is also true that the current Prime Minister is turning up to Prime Minister’s questions more often than his predecessor, who was absent from the Dispatch Box for Prime Minister’s questions twice as often as the current Prime Minister has been. We know the record of the previous Prime Minister—I think I coined the expression “McCavity” to describe him, because where there was trouble, he was always somewhere else—but nevertheless, for the Opposition to suggest that the current Prime Minister is avoiding his commitments is absolute nonsense. The Prime Minister has made more statements to the House per sitting day than his predecessor and has spent more than 30 hours at the Dispatch Box in so doing. He takes his responsibilities to the House very seriously, and I am afraid I have very little time for claims that are posturing nonsense of no substance whatever.
It might be helpful if I inform the House that there is a precedent for the proposal to sit on a Friday to allow the continuation of the Budget debate before a recess. We do not have to delve too far back to find it—it happened under the previous Government, during my period in the House and that of many right hon. and hon. Members, on 11 April 2003, just nine years ago and a passing moment in the time scale of Parliament.
During points of order on Tuesday, the hon. Member for Rhondda, who I again note is not yet in his place, asked what business may take place on a Friday sitting and specifically about statements and urgent questions. As we know, the Government rightly remain accountable through statements and urgent questions on a sitting Friday, but we have not the slightest intention of changing Standing Orders to allow for oral questions on that day, which would require wholesale changes to the rota. That is entirely in line with precedent, including under the previous Administration—on Friday 11 April 2003, in similar circumstances, no oral question session took place. It is a wonder that the hon. Member for Rhondda, having been a business manger in his time, now takes a very different view of what should happen in the House from that which he proposed from the Dispatch Box previously.
Amendments (a) and (b), tabled in the names of the hon. Members for Kettering and for Wellingborough, would establish sittings in Westminster Hall on Monday 19 March and Friday 23 March. There is a problem with this and I ask the hon. Members to address it if they speak to their amendments. In the absence of any other changes to Standing Orders, it would fall to the Government to nominate business in Westminster Hall for those two days. There are colleagues of mine in government who might appreciate the generosity of these amendments from two notable members of the Backbench Business Committee. They have obviously recognised that, at the moment, the Government have no control over the time allocation in Westminster Hall, and wish to correct this anomaly.
Mr Heath
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right that everybody would be very happy, but the fact remains that the Backbench Business Committee, of which he is such a distinguished member, now has responsibility for scheduling debates on those days. If his amendments were successful, these days would not be available to the Committee, so it simply could not be done under the terms of the Wright Committee proposals. That is the sadness of what is obviously a well-intentioned thought on his part. The Standing Orders get in the way, and we are as bound by the Standing Orders as any Member.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I am surprised that the Deputy Leader of the House would struggle to think of suitable business to take up the time in Westminster Hall on either the Monday or the Friday were the amendments to be passed, because today in business questions 37 subjects were suggested for debate. I am sure that the Government could pick from that huge list two or three suitable topics on which the House could hold the Government to account.
Mr Heath
I am sure that we could, but that would be to return to the dark ages when the Government decided what was debated in the House, rather than the Backbench Business Committee, and I do not want to do that. I am a great believer in the Backbench Business Committee and in the need for us to continue making progress towards a House business committee in due course. I do not want to return to the time when the Executive decided what the House could debate. The idea that Ministers should retake possession of Westminster Hall and decide what the House should debate on those days on the basis of their prejudices and requirements rather than of what is properly decided by the Backbench Business Committee is wholly retrogressive. So I will hold firm to the principle behind the Backbench Business Committee and the Wright Committee reforms that we have put in place. I certainly do not think that we should move away from that principle without the benefit of a more thorough inquiry.
The Procedure Committee recently reported on new and inventive ways in which Westminster Hall could be used. It is absolutely right that the House, in the future, be given an opportunity to consider those proposals in more detail. There are colleagues in government who would be delighted to take up the hon. Gentlemen’s suggestion of giving more power to the Executive, and at some point a Minister from the Dispatch Box might ask for their support and would be grateful for it when that time comes. But it will not be this Minister on this day.
Mr Heath
No, because I was being entirely speculative, and idle speculation is not something that we should indulge in from the Dispatch Box, as the hon. Gentleman will readily recognise. As I have said, my view is that we must keep to the reforms that we have put in place and not move backwards.
Mr Hollobone
I am struggling to identify the principle that the Deputy Leader of the House is purporting to uphold, because he is effectively telling the House that it is better for the Government to scrap completely a day’s business in Westminster Hall than to decide what business should take place on an alternative day.
Mr Heath
I have to say that days are scrapped in this House for all sorts of reasons. However, as a matter of fact, we sit more often, and as the hon. Gentleman will recognise, we have provided a huge range of opportunities—more than before—for Members to have their say. However, there are times when the House is not sitting—when public holidays occur, for instance—and we do not automatically say, “Well, we’ll sit on the Sunday, because the Monday is no longer available.” Instead, we look at the calendar of the House as a whole and we ensure that there are ample opportunities. The principle—I will set it out again—is that the Executive should not decide what happens in Westminster Hall. That is the position that we are in, and to move away from it without careful consideration of why and how we should do so would be a mistake.
I know that the hon. Gentleman recognises the progress that we have made. He is trying to ensure that the Government are properly held to account, and he is absolutely right in that, as is his hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough. He will recognise that the Government have already introduced elected Chairs of Select Committees, Back Benchers having control of the agenda through the Backbench Business Committee and extra time for the scrutiny of Bills on Report—all things that improve the scrutiny of Ministers by Back Benchers. That is absolutely right, and the balance has genuinely shifted towards Parliament and away from the Executive. I want to maintain that.
The hon. Member for Kettering and his colleague are putting forward proposals with the best of intentions, and I understand that. However, I do not think they are either necessary or desirable at this point, although I am certainly prepared to go away and listen to the points that they make and consider how we can best accommodate proper scrutiny, as I always have done. I commend the hon. Gentlemen on the spirit of their amendments; equally, I will ask the House to reject them if they are pressed. I have set out what the purpose of the House should be in agreeing to the motion before us and in rejecting the amendments. I commend the motion to the House.
Mr Heath
With permission, I will respond briefly to some of the points that hon. Members have raised. First, let me say that I absolutely bask in the approbation of Master Thomas Bone. His views on who are goodies and who are baddies now represent the signal sign of respect across the country, and I am very pleased to know that I am a goodie.
I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) about the importance that we as parliamentarians should attach to sittings in Westminster Hall. I regularly hear people speak as though a debate there was a second-class debate, as though it was beneath them even to appear there to speak to a motion that mattered to them, and as though the House was disrespecting the issues that are debated there. Nothing could be further from the truth. Until this House recognises the value of Westminster Hall debates and, indeed, debates that are now held here in time allocated to the Backbench Business Committee rather than in Government time—until we understand the esteem of those occasions—we are doing ourselves a great disservice.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
I would like to add to what the hon. Gentleman has said about Westminster Hall. I have just been over there myself, and an absolutely huge debate is taking place about safe cycling campaign of The Times. In fact, it is virtually standing room only, even for Members who wish to participate. That is a serious debate that demonstrates that Westminster Hall can be a very good place to have important debates.
Mr Heath
It can indeed, with the one proviso being that the debate must be on a matter that does not need resolution by a Division at the end. Yesterday, I heard an excellent debate, which I sat through in its entirety, on the very sad issue of Kevin Williams and the events in Sheffield those many years ago. It was a superb debate, with every contributor making extremely valuable comments, and yet some were also moved to say that it was a shame that it was not taking place in the Chamber and that the Government—despite the fact that it has nothing to do with the Government—had chosen to put it on in Westminster Hall. That is a very unfortunate way of expressing things because it gives the public the idea that matters of huge concern to them are somehow devalued by being debated by parliamentarians in Parliament in a place where, yes, matters are not subject to a decisive vote, but some matters one would not expect to be so.
I am glad that the hon. Member for Wellingborough referred to the use of the debating time immediately before the recess. He knows that I relish my involvement—others may not—in pre-recess Adjournment debates. I sometimes feel that I have rather more speeches to respond to than I have time available, but that is a different matter. Those debates are clearly valued by Members of the House. I hope it is a tradition that we can largely keep to, but I entirely understand the reasoning that the Backbench Business Committee has applied in this case.
As regards the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), I am glad that the hon. Members for Wellingborough and for Christchurch (Mr Chope) entered a reservation about having Westminster Hall debates on a Monday morning. Those of us who live a little further away from Westminster would find it rather difficult to get to those comfortably as well as being in our constituencies at the weekend.
In moving the amendment, the hon. Member for Kettering mentioned what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said in business questions earlier and asked me to be powerful in my advocacy of the case. I think the Leader of the House said that I was required to be not powerful but coherent and compelling. It certainly is not for me to decide whether I have been coherent or compelling; the vote will determine that in due course, so let us see.
The thrust of what the hon. Member for Kettering said is that there are huge demands on time in this House. Of course he is right. There has always been great demand for time by Back Benchers who have matters that they wish to debate, and there has never been sufficient time on the supply side to meet that demand. Even if the House were to sit in continuous Session, it would not cope with the demands that are expressed every week at business questions, which are so ably answered by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.
I have worked out what it would take to give a proper debate to each of the 51 topics raised in business questions this week. Of course, different topics are raised every week. We would need to more than double the time that we sit in this House each week. Does anyone think that is practical? Does anyone think we could double the time that we sit each week? There probably are some people who think that is practical, but most people understand it is in the interests of Members that they sleep occasionally and in the interests of constituencies that their Members sometimes visit to hear what real people have to say about real things, rather than simply spending their time in the House. I think it would be impossible to meet the demand.
The question is how we can reasonably limit the demand and provide time. If we are going to change our arrangements, we should not make it up as we go along. We need to come to a properly considered view, taking into account all the pros and cons, as we have done previously when we have changed the Standing Orders. I simply do not accept that bringing forward an ad hoc suggestion without the benefit of Standing Orders, in the way that has been suggested, is the right way to proceed.
The hon. Member for Wellingborough said that this House should have more control over its own timetable. I absolutely agree with that, and that is what we have given it. However, I do not think it encourages the House to be sensible in the use of its time if we ask it to reverse on 23 February a decision that it made on 21 February—to say on the Thursday the opposite of what it said on Tuesday. I therefore think that we should reject that proposal.
The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) talked about incompetence. I will point out incompetence: incompetence is the Opposition not being able to tell us until a day before what they will discuss on an Opposition day, when they have had weeks to prepare for it. She said that the reason the previous Prime Minister was so frequently away from Prime Minister’s questions was that he was going around the world saving it. I am not sure that we all recognise that description.
The hon. Lady said that the Leader of the Opposition enjoys Prime Minister’s questions. I can see that he might take some comfort from being surrounded by well-wishers, all desperately hoping that he will do better than the previous week, with the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) willing him forward and the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) looking at his successor with avuncular charm. All those things might spur the Leader of the Opposition on to another of his relaunches—the man has been relaunched more often than the Padstow lifeboat. However, it is the purpose of the House not to give those opportunities to the Leader of the Opposition, but to ensure that Ministers are held to account. This House sets out its business in a proper—[Interruption.] Oh! Isn’t it wonderful? The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who had such strong views about this business earlier in the week that he raised a point of order, has arrived one minute before the vote to say something from a sedentary position.
I commend the motion to the House. I ask it not to engage in ad hoc changes to our Standing Orders by accepting the amendments. I hope that we will always ensure that the House has adequate time properly to scrutinise the affairs of Government.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Business of the House (Private Members’ Bills)
David Heath Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
I beg to move,
That Private Members’ Bills shall have precedence over Government business on 6 and 13 July, 7 and 14 September, 19 and 26 October and 2, 9 and 30 November 2012 and 18 and 25 January, 1 February and 1 March 2013.
Apparently I was coherent and compelling in the previous debate, as we won the vote; let us hope that I am as lucky this time. The motion gives precedence to private Members’ Bills over Government business on the Fridays set out by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House in the business statement on 9 February. I do not intend to detain the House for too long on this issue. Standing Orders set out that there should be 13 such Fridays per Session. Members are aware of the dates set aside in the next Session, and I have received no representations about the unsuitability of any of them.
I am aware that some thought is being given to the timing and process of the private Members’ Bill system by the Procedure Committee. It is, however, quite right that we should proceed on the basis of the present position until we have received alternative proposals from the Committee and the House has decided whether to agree to them. The House might be able to have that wider debate at a future date, but today’s motion is simply to give effect to the dates as provided for in the Standing Orders. No amendments to the motion have been tabled, so it is a simple choice: does the House want 13 Fridays devoted to private Members’ Bills or not?
Mr Heath
With the leave of the House, Mr Deputy Speaker.
This has been a wonderful opportunity for a short debate about the dates of private Members’ Bills. We are always happy to have a debate when the House demands one. Equally, we are always happy for there not to be a debate when the House agrees to something without objection. That always strikes me as a sensible use of time in the House, which, as we have already heard in previous debates, is at a premium.
I am grateful to the hon. Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) for making clear the value of being given the earliest possible notice of dates when they are available to us. We always try to accommodate the House as best we can by providing early notice, and that goes for the printed calendar as well. That too is provisional, but it helps Members to identify how the timetable fits in with their personal and political arrangements. They can then notify us if there are difficulties, although on this occasion no one has mentioned any problems with the dates that have been allocated.
This is provisional in the sense that any decision by the House can be rescinded by the House. Not so long ago, the House was invited to rescind a motion that it had passed only two days earlier. I cannot say whether at any time in the next year the House may wish to rescind the dates that it has chosen for private Members’ Bills, but I hope that it will not do so, because it makes sense for us to be able to plan.
We are also in the hands of the Select Committees, including the Procedure Committee, which examines the proposals for private Members’ Bills. I have no idea what the Committee will say, and it would be improper if I did. If it produces recommendations and they are put to the House, the Government will of course respond, and the House will determine whether there is to be a change. Again, that would not be a matter for me, as a Minister, to determine.
As for the question of whether adequate time is provided by the procedures governing private Members’ Bills, we are bound by a Standing Order of the House, but within what that Standing Order sets out, we try to provide the days that seem to us to be most suitable. The Fridays in September have been included because it has been suggested that it would be helpful for Back Benchers to be able to make progress with their legislation then, but if the House were to recommend otherwise, we would obviously pay attention to that view.
The arrangements for money resolutions and the like are normally determined on a Bill-by-Bill basis with both the Member responsible for the Bill and the Minister who would have an interest in it. There is not a Government position on that. That often involves complex negotiation, because we all want good private Members’ legislation that the House can support where appropriate, while also ensuring proper scrutiny. That is our intention, and the intention of the House.
Mr Heath
The answer to that is simple. Private Member’s Bills are dealt with on Fridays so they do not compete for time with Government legislation. As we know, Government legislation does not always run in a straight trajectory, not least because we are dealing with two Houses of Parliament, and there are therefore variables. We do not want to give people a firm calendar on which they then make their arrangements only for them subsequently to find that it has been changed at late notice.
The hon. Gentleman has a point in respect of whether the Backbench Business Committee, the Government and others who have an interest should consider whether there might be a way of accommodating fixed-point debates, as it were, on matters that there is a relevant time to discuss. We should address that question in the context of the review of the operation of the Backbench Business Committee.
Sadly, we are not yet at a point where we can decide with certainty and long in advance which day in the legislative week will be given over to what activity of the House, because there are too many imponderables. As a Government business manager, I would love to know well in advance the position in respect of every Bill before the House, but I listen to what both Houses say and respond accordingly. We all must accept that that means that there will be uncertainties in the future programme. On that basis, I commend the motion to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Private Members’ Bills shall have precedence over Government business on 6 and 13 July, 7 and 14 September, 19 and 26 October and 2, 9 and 30 November 2012 and 18 and 25 January, 1 February and 1 March 2013.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Heath Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
2. How many e-petitions have attracted more than 100,000 signatures.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
In the six months since the launch of the site, more than 3.5 million signatures have been submitted to more than 11,000 published petitions. Those statistics underpin my view that e-petitions are connecting the Government and Parliament with a remarkable number and range of people. So far, eight e-petitions have passed the 100,000 signature threshold. They remain viewable on the site, including the Government response.
Claire Perry
May I ask the Deputy Leader of the House for his opinion on the report from the Procedure Committee, which is chaired so ably by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight)? The report suggests that e-petitions should be debated in Westminster Hall, which would be opened up so that we have more time for such debates. I welcome that proposal, but my constituents would be very concerned if they thought all e-petitions would be shuffled off to Westminster Hall. Will the Deputy Leader of the House reassure them and me that we will still have time to debate e-petitions on the Floor of the House?
Mr Heath
I agree with the hon. Lady. It is important that the Backbench Business Committee can choose where it holds debates, including on the Floor of the House and in some cases on a substantive motion. Last year’s debate on the release of Hillsborough papers is a good example of just such scheduling of a debate that showed the House at its best.
The Committee should also continue to be able to decide that e-petitions are not appropriate for debate, or that they have already been considered, and not schedule them for debate. Members should be free to seek Adjournment debates on e-petitions if that is felt to be the best route. I note that there will be such a debate in Westminster Hall on 22 February relating to the e-petition on the death of Kevin Williams at Hillsborough.
Tom Greatrex
I am sure the Deputy Leader of the House has looked at the report of the Procedure Committee, of which I am a member. One issue that the report looks at is how expectations have been raised because the wording on the Government website suggests that every petition that gets more than 100,000 signatures will be debated on the Floor of the House. If the Committee comes up with an amended form of wording, will he undertake to look at it and to implement changes suggested by the Committee quickly?
Mr Heath
The Government will respond in due course. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I generally support the thrust of the Committee’s report, but we will respond in the normal way, shortly after the Hansard Society seminar on e-petitions, which I welcome. That is due to take place on 6 March.
Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
Is the Minister aware that many of us feel that the Government should be congratulated on introducing for the first time an e-petition system that can trigger a debate in Parliament? However, does he also agree that any new system needs examining, refining and improving in the light of experience? Because of that, will he try to secure a Government response to the Procedure Committee’s report as soon as possible, so that the House can debate this matter sooner rather than later?
Mr Heath
I thank the right hon. Gentleman and his Committee for their work on this matter. No system in the world is incapable of refinement and improvement by looking at it over time and I am grateful for the points he makes. I did not think there was any doubt in what we have consistently said. We have said that e-petitions are eligible for debate once they reach the threshold, not that they will necessarily be debated. The system is working well, but the Procedure Committee has made some fair points on how we can better manage the process in the House. We will certainly respond to the Committee as soon as is appropriate.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
The Procedure Committee report was not only excellent; it was done in record time to ensure that we could have a timely debate and to ensure that the e-petition system works as well as it possibly can. Will the Government ensure that their response to the Committee’s e-petitions report comes before 6 March, so that we can consider it in the Hansard Society seminar?
Mr Heath
We will do our best. The seminar to which the hon. Lady refers will help to inform the work of the Procedure Committee. The results of the seminar plus the Government’s response will—I hope—enable something to be laid before the House that will improve how we deal with e-petitions. With co-ordination and co-operation from everybody involved, we will ensure we get the right response.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I think I am right in saying that virtually every e-petition a Member has brought to the Backbench Business Committee that has reached 100,000 signatures has been debated in one way or the other. The Government should be enormously congratulated on bringing the public in line with Parliament. The Leader of the House has not had enough praise for that. Without this system, we would not have had the EU referendum debate.
Mr Heath
I am always grateful for praise and congratulation from the hon. Gentleman. I genuinely think the e-petition system has been a great improvement. The old Downing street e-petition system, under the previous Government, had no mechanism for questions ever to get on to the Floor of the House. The most memorable thing it ever produced was a suggestion that Jeremy Clarkson be Prime Minister. I think our system works an awful lot better.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
3. Whether he has provided written guidance to Ministers on ministerial statements.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
5. Whether the introduction of a statutory register of lobbyists will require any changes to the Standing Orders of the House.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
The Government published our initial proposals in the form of a consultation document on 20 January. Any effects on Standing Orders would best be considered in the light of what emerges from that consultation and subsequent legislation.
John Cryer
Does not the fact that there are links between serving parliamentarians and certain lobbying firms imply that there would be a need to change Standing Orders in some way? Does not this exchange reinforce the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister should have made an oral statement on the Floor of the House to launch the document, rather than fobbing us off with a written statement?
Mr Heath
I really think we need to understand that the House is not being fobbed off with a written ministerial statement, particularly when there is a consultation paper the hon. Gentleman can contribute to in the same way as every other Member. Consultation papers are there to consult, and it is perfectly appropriate to let the House be aware of a consultation paper that has been issued by issuing a written ministerial statement—a point you, Mr Speaker, have also made in recent weeks.
Graham Jones
It took months for the consultation to be published. There is obviously a lot of dithering by the Government. When will the register of lobbyists finally be put before the House so that we can scrutinise it?
Mr Heath
Let us make a comparison on dithering. We have brought before the House, within 18 months, firm proposals in a consultation paper with draft clauses. In 13 years, the Government that the hon. Gentleman supported did nothing whatsoever, despite being asked several times by Committees of the House to bring forward a statutory register of lobbyists. I think that we are making progress where his Government did not.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Why have the Government not been able to provide a concise definition of a lobbyist?
Mr Heath
Because, believe it or not, it is rather a difficult thing to define, which is why the consultation paper invites responses on precisely that issue. Some people would take an all-encompassing definition, which would require every one of our constituents who comes to see us in an advice surgery to register as a lobbyist before attending. I think that that would be an over-extensive definition.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The Government’s proposals, inadequate as they are, will require primary legislation. Will the Government now commit to pre-legislative scrutiny, which might encourage Ministers to come up with more substantial proposals?
Mr Heath
Pre-legislative scrutiny requires the publication of draft clauses, and that is what we have done. The hon. Lady might have noticed that. Of course, if, as a result of consultation, a very different proposal is put before the House, that too will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, because it is important that we get this right. Again, though, I really cannot take seriously the hon. Lady and her colleagues, who were incapable of doing anything about this problem, now complaining that we are doing something, which we are.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
The tentacles of the corrupt and semi-corrupt lobbying system have sunk deep into the body politic. If politics is to be reformed and confidence in the House and politics restored, major reform is essential. Unfortunately, the consultation document shows that instead of listening to what the Prime Minister said when in opposition, the Government have spent their time listening to lobbyists lobbying about lobbying.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
6. Whether he has any plans to change the order of oral answers to questions.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
The Government have shown themselves willing to make changes to the order of oral questions for the convenience of the House. For example, they responded positively to a request from the official Opposition to extend the length of questions to the Deputy Prime Minister to 40 minutes. The status of the oral questions rota is kept under review.
Jonathan Ashworth
The Deputy Leader of the House will recall that a couple of weeks ago the Chancellor was unable to make it to Treasury questions because he was at ECOFIN, That was a perfectly reasonable and acceptable excuse, but given what is happening in the eurozone and given that ECOFIN usually meets on a Tuesday, does it mean that the Chancellor will miss future Treasury questions and should we not consider changing the time of Treasury questions, perhaps back to Thursdays, which is when they used to be a couple of years ago?
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman raises a perfectly proper question. From my experience, however, the Chancellor of the Exchequer never knowingly loses an opportunity to debate matters in the House or to answer questions. He is no Macavity. He has attended 11 of the 13 Treasury oral sessions since he took office, which compares well to the previous Chancellor. The hon. Gentleman might have a point, though, and I will discuss the matter with Treasury colleagues, if there is a problem. I believe, however, that we will see the Chancellor the Exchequer regularly here answering questions on economic matters, as he would wish to do.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
May I put in a plea for an extension to Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Question Time, which is still limited, despite there being so many particularly interesting matters relating to rural affairs and food?
Mr Heath
I hear what my hon. Friend says. The trouble is that we cannot extend one Question Time without reducing another or lengthening the interval between them. I know that the House wants to hold Ministers and Departments to account and to fulfil its scrutiny role, and we have to find a balance in order to ensure that that is done efficiently and effectively, but I hear what she says.
Point of Order
David Heath Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In answer to the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) in questions to the Leader of the House earlier, I may have given the impression that draft clauses had been included in the consultation paper on the registration of lobbyists. That is not so, although I repeat that it is the Government’s intention to publish legislation in draft after the consultation has been concluded. I have already apologised to the hon. Lady in private, and I now do so from the Dispatch Box. I wanted to correct the record at the earliest opportunity.
Early-day Motions
David Heath Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) on securing this debate, and on securing such a sparkling attendance by colleagues for a late-night Adjournment debate. Since entering the House in 2010, he has shown consistent interest in reforming early-day motions, most notably by tabling—with tongue in cheek, as he said— an early-day motion entitled “Early-Day Motions” in July 2010.
I ought to begin by saying that there are, rightly, limits to the Government’s responsibilities for the matters under debate. That was not always so. Between 1994 and 2010, the Government had a very large element of control over whether motions tabled by Back Benchers could be debated on the Floor of the House. The Government were thus the proper recipient of requests for debates on or arising from early-day motions. I seem to recall that that was often a feature of the weekly business question.
Since the welcome advent of the Backbench Business Committee following a decision of the House in June 2010, it now rightly falls to that Committee to decide what subjects will be debated in Back-Bench time and what form motions for debate should take. Of course, the Government, and particularly my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, continue to examine early-day motions as barometers of opinion on public policy and matters meriting debate.
When the Procedure Committee last considered early-day motions in 2007, seven categories or purposes for early-day motions were identified: first, to express opinions on matters of general public interest, often to assess the degree of support among Members; secondly, to continue a political debate, for example by criticising the Government or the Opposition; thirdly, to give prominence to a campaign or the work of some pressure group outside the House, and I will return to that in a moment; fourthly, to highlight local issues, such as the success of a local football team, the achievements of constituents or the need for a bypass; fifthly, to pray against a statutory instrument subject to the negative procedure, both to draw attention to opposition and to encourage referral of the instrument for debate; sixthly, to criticise individuals, including other hon. Members, whose conduct can be criticised only on a substantive motion, and I think that the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) has raised that matter before now; and seventhly, to set out detailed criticisms, such as of a company or body, under the protection of parliamentary privilege.
As the above categories suggest, the scope for early-day motions is wide. Individual hon. Members’ freedom to table them is great. EDMs can be viewed in some ways as a safety valve when Members find their ability to express views limited by the availability of time or by the rules of the House.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I am grateful to the Deputy Leader of the House for outlining that helpful list. Does he agree that many of those categories also apply to business questions every Thursday, when hon. Members ask for statements or debates on subjects close to their hearts in the full knowledge that no such statement or debate will follow but because it enables them to make a point? That is what the EDM does, but it has the additional feature that many Members can sign up to it, which enables them to make a point and show that it is widely supported. Would that not be a loss to hon. Members?
Mr Heath
It was for precisely that reason and connected reasons that the Procedure Committee in the previous Parliament decided against recommending the abolition of EDMs or their substantive reform. However—there are several “howevers”—a major area of discontent for many years, as reflected in the Procedure Committee’s report in the last Parliament, concerned the lack of connection between EDMs, whose ostensible purpose was to set down a motion for debate in the House on an unspecified day, and the provision of time on the Floor of the House. The House has taken a major step to respond to this problem with the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee, as I mentioned at the outset.
Robert Halfon
To be fair, the Backbench Business Committee is slightly different, because any MP can ask for a debate regardless of whether they have tabled an EDM. As I have suggested to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), is not the answer—I say this as someone who supports EDMs—to change their name to “MPs Books of Petitions” and to publish them online? That way, no one would be misled over whether they might be debated.
Mr Heath
I will return to that point in a moment. Yes, the Backbench Business Committee considers any matter brought forward by Back-Bench Members, but it has shown its willingness to enable EDMs to be debated. It demonstrated that by providing time for a debate, on 10 March last year, on an EDM concerning the work of UN Women.
Drawing on a Procedure Committee recommendation in 2007 that was endorsed by the House on 25 October 2007, the Committee also enabled an EDM to be tagged as “relevant” to the debate on parliamentary reform, which took place in Westminster Hall just over a year ago, on 3 February 2011. The Committee can also draw on EDMs to provide evidence of the breadth of support among Members for a subject of debate, as it did in the case of the Fish Fight campaign. Were they to be named something else, their effectiveness at introducing subjects, with the support of Members, for the Committee to consider would not be reduced. It is a fact that EDMs have that function.
Although the Committee has fundamentally changed how business in the House is determined—and changed it for the better, in my view—some myths about EDMs linger on, although the hon. Member for Weaver Vale exploded some of them this evening. We are concerned about the propensity of pressure groups effectively to mislead our constituents into thinking that EDMs are something that they are not—an avenue to a procedure in the House—and to suggest that there is a magical number of signatories on an EDM that will cause it to be debated, which of course there is not.
That notion has persisted over the years, despite the absence of evidence to support it. It might be expedient for some pressure groups and lobbyists to perpetuate that myth and to raise false expectations among our constituents. We have all received e-mails stating that such-and-such an EDM is of critical importance and that we must sign them—I, as a Minister, cannot sign them any more, so I have a ready excuse, but I know that other Members sometimes feel pressurised by that sort of campaign.
The new House, selected in 2010, seems to have many more Members sceptical about the value of adding their names to EDMs. The average number of new signatories per week fell from 3,704 in the last financial year of the previous Parliament, to 1,965 in the first financial year of this Parliament. More Members have decided to adopt a policy of not signing early-day motions—I think we heard an example earlier. Indeed, I understand that Members can record that view with the Table Office. Above all, the Backbench Business Committee has demonstrated through its work that the link between early-day motions and debates is not a crude numbers game. For those reasons, I hope that all Members agree that the myth of a magical number of signatories should be confined to the dustbin, where it belongs.
The hon. Member for Weaver Vale identified a further problem—others have amplified it—in the triviality of some early-day motions. He referred to what he saw as some examples of early-day motions that devalued the currency. I certainly do not want to comment on any individual cases, but I agree with him that it seems highly questionable whether some early-day motions are appropriate, and that Members should pause for thought about the reputational and cost implications of their actions.
Sir Peter Bottomley
Might not the same thing have applied to William Wilberforce when he first had the rather revolutionary idea of abolishing the slave trade, or Samuel Plimsoll and his idea of painting a white line on the side of ships so that they would not be overladen with sailors who would otherwise go down to Davy Jones’s locker?
Mr Heath
If I may gently say so, I think there is a difference of kind between those causes, which I think most people would consider to be serious causes, and the fortunes of the local football club on a Saturday afternoon. I think there is a difference, perhaps, in scale of import between those topics.
Sir Bob Russell
Perhaps I can ask the Deputy Leader of the House to consider these examples: the Gurkha rights campaign and the Royal British Legion’s military covenant campaign, on which I tabled early-day motions, or indeed early-day motion 1—I think—in 2009, which I also tabled and which the then Conservative Opposition thought was so brilliant that they brought it to the House and we had a vote on it.
Mr Heath
There is no doubt that some early-day motions are of considerable importance in the topics they raise. What I think the hon. Member for Weaver Vale was saying is that there may be better ways of bringing those matters to the House than the current system. There are also things that, frankly, I would be amazed if the House spent its time debating in real life, as opposed to the application that an early-day motion purports to be.
There are ways in which the issue could be dealt with. The hon. Gentleman suggested that limits might be imposed on the number of early-day motions that an individual Member could table or sign. Those are matters for the Procedure Committee to consider, should it decide to do so, but numerical limits, which were also suggested in an intervention, might be seen as an unexceptional constraint on hon. Members’ freedom of action. The implementation of a limit might encourage the syndication of motions. Limits would certainly provide an incentive for hon. Members to ensure that they used their right to table or support motions wisely, but at a cost, in terms of the limitation of their action.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
Will the Deputy Leader of the House give way?
Mr Heath
I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who rather pre-empts the final comment that I was going to make. I was going to ask him and his Committee to take this matter forward. I now know that when I make that request, the answer will be in the affirmative, for which I am grateful.
Chris Heaton-Harris
As there is now time, will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I am a Member who refuses to sign early-day motions, as I believe they are the tool of a very poor lobbyist. Will the Deputy Leader of the House reflect on whether a campaign is devalued if a vast number of Members do not sign the relevant early-day motion? If I were someone who signed these things, I would dearly like to sign early-day motion 2637, on diabetes care, which has achieved only 27 signatures. I would say that the EDM devalues that campaign, rather than adding to it.
Mr Heath
I really cannot give way again, because we are coming to the end of what is normally an Adjournment debate between one Back-Bench Member and a Minister, and tonight we have had a cast of thousands.
The hon. Member for Weaver Vale mentioned the cost of early-day motions. The House service estimated that the cost of administering EDMs in 2009-10 was approximately £1 million. The annual cost may have fallen somewhat as a result of the decision not to print the weekly compilation of EDMs, but those costs should certainly give hon. Members pause for thought before they table motions.
One possible solution is the one suggested by the hon. Gentleman, who proposed that EDMs should only appear electronically. The cost estimate to which I referred earlier indicated that about three quarters of the costs of EDMs were attributable to printing. It is clear that the database is now the main means by which people outside this place, as well as many inside it, access EDMs. My own view is that the time is fast approaching when more categories of business papers can be made available primarily or exclusively in electronic form—I imagine that some will gasp with horror at that suggestion, but I believe that it is one way in which we can actually save the taxpayer money—and that early-day motions may be in the vanguard of change in that regard.
I think the debate has demonstrated that the time may soon be ripe for the Procedure Committee to look again at the subject of early-day motions, and we have just heard its the Chair, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), say that he would be more than happy to put the matter to the Committee. It is for the Committee and for the House, rather than the Government and this Minister at the Dispatch Box, to specify the appropriate procedure. If proposals for reform were presented—either along the lines advocated by the hon. Gentleman, or in another form as a result of the Procedure Committee’s considerations—it would be for the House to decide on the appropriate solution following a debate in Back-Bench time. In the context of a reformed House with more control over its own affairs, it is not for the Government to present proposals for change in this area. However, the hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue relating to the way in which we as a House conduct our business.
Perhaps I might surprise the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) by telling him that I now have time to allow him to intervene, if he does so quickly.
Dr Lewis
What a marvellous Deputy Leader of the House we have! I just wanted to record the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), who opposes the signing of EDMs, secured my signature, along with those of more than 100 other hon. Members, to a letter that he wanted to send to the press. If it is good enough to send a letter to the press, it is good enough to get a large number of MPs’ signatures on an early-day motion.
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman has done very well to get his intervention in.
Let me end by thanking the hon. Member for Weaver Vale for raising the issue. We have had an interesting debate, and I look forward to hearing the views of the Procedure Committee in due course.
Question put and agreed to.
Public Bodies
David Heath Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
I beg to move,
That the following new Standing Order be made—
‘(1) Subject to paragraph (2), the select committee charged with reporting on a draft order for the purposes of section 11(5) and (6) of the Public Bodies Act 2011 shall be—
(a) the select committee appointed under Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to Government departments) appointed to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department of the Minister who has laid the draft order; or
(b) in respect of a draft order laid by a Minister in the Cabinet Office, the Select Committee on Public Administration.
(2) The Liaison Committee may report that it has designated a select committee appointed under Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to Government departments) or the Select Committee on Public Administration as the select committee charged with reporting on a specified draft order for the purposes of section 11(5) and (6) of the Public Bodies Act 2011 in place of the select committee to which paragraph (1) applies.’.
Let me start by apologising to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the House, because what remains of my voice may be barely adequate to the task this afternoon. However, I shall do my best.
The Public Bodies Act 2011 received Royal Assent shortly before Christmas. The Act represents a central part of the Government’s strategy for the reform of public bodies, which will lead to a cumulative reduction in administrative spending of £2.6 billion over the spending review period. The bodies to be reformed under the Act are listed in its schedules and the detail of the reforms is to be set out in secondary legislation. The motion will enable that secondary legislation to be subject to proper scrutiny in the House, when it is in draft form, before it is approved by the House. The relevant provisions of the Act are described in the explanatory memorandum to the Act and the proposals in the motion are described in an explanatory memorandum that is available in the Vote Office. The motion has been the subject of consultation with the Liaison Committee and the Select Committee on Procedure, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friends the Members for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) for their contributions to the consultation and for agreeing to add their names to the motion.
The proposal relates to the specific question of which Committee should be able to examine a draft order with a view to the possible use of the extended period for scrutiny, and then making recommendations on the substantive provisions of that draft order. We propose that that role should fall to the relevant departmental Select Committee or, in the case of draft orders laid by Cabinet Office Ministers, to the Select Committee on Public Administration. In addition, we propose to give the Liaison Committee a power to designate an alternative Committee. We do not expect that to be used frequently, but it could be helpful if there were machinery of government changes in the future.
We believe that departmental Select Committees represent the right option in this case. They are most likely to have a prior knowledge of, and interest in, the subject matter of the draft orders. The Liaison Committee has agreed that the proposal in the motion
“seems sensible and complements the arrangements in the Lords”.
The Liaison Committee sought a number of assurances, and it was particularly valuable to have the short delay from before Christmas until now in which to have a dialogue with the Liaison Committee. I have responded in detail, in correspondence which is available in the Vote Office and which I will place, in due course, in the Library. In particular, steps have been taken to ensure that relevant Select Committees are informed about the earlier draft orders to be laid before the House, and that discussions can take place between Departments and Select Committees about the operation of the procedure and the timetable in particular cases.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Although I strongly endorse and very much agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying about Select Committees examining these orders, does he not agree that Select Committees are already heavily overburdened, given the amount of work that they are doing? I wonder when he thinks we shall find time to look into the orders in the way that he describes.
Mr Heath
Obviously, that was one consideration. Against that should be set the question of who is best placed to know the operations of bodies within the remit of an individual Select Committee, and what the Department’s objectives are in bringing forward an order. It would be very difficult for any other body in the House to have the same level of expertise. In the initial stages it is a matter of determining whether further scrutiny is required. That is the trigger that we are asking the Select Committees to pull, and they are very well positioned to do so. There is also a finite number of bodies for any one Select Committee in the Public Bodies Act 2011. It is not an open-ended Act, as I know full well, having assisted with the Bill’s Committee and Report stages. There is therefore a reasonable expectation that the task will not be too onerous for Select Committees. I certainly discussed that consideration with the Liaison Committee and others, and we felt that at the end of the day no other body was as well suited as the departmental Select Committee.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
What procedure, if any, might a Back Bencher be able to use to propose further scrutiny by a Select Committee over and above what it is tasked with doing? For example, if we wanted the Treasury Committee to scrutinise some of the EU financial services legislation that passes through the House, which is normally, rightly, in the hands of the European Scrutiny Committee, would there be a way in which one could put that forward?
Mr Heath
That takes me away a little from the matter of orders relating to the Public Bodies Act, but it is always open for Select Committees to consider their work programmes and to put forward proposals, and it is equally open to hon. Members to make suggestions to Select Committees. Part of the Liaison Committee’s role is to try to prevent any undue overlapping of work among Committees and, where there is a potential trespass, to police it, adjudicate and find a successful way forward. There is probably no obstacle to my hon. Friend's suggesting that the Committee look at something, but equally the Officers, Clerks and Chair of that Committee have a responsibility to ensure that they do not inappropriately usurp the work of another Committee.
Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
I commiserate with my hon. Friend, who sounds like a cross between Barry White and Louis Armstrong. Is he aware that the Procedure Committee has looked at this matter and is satisfied with what he proposes? Despite the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), who is a valued Committee member, I do not think that the proposal will place too great an additional burden on Select Committees. It is right and proper that the Select Committees undertake such scrutiny.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
Will the Deputy Leader of the House say a little more about how he proposes to deal with cross-cutting Select Committees, particularly the Environmental Audit Committee, which does not follow one Department but has an obvious interest in some cross-cutting issues and the need for the Government to join up policy?
Mr Heath
I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but let us remember that the proposal is for a trigger mechanism to enable the House to consider matters further; it is not an end in itself. The process as set out in the 2011 Act enables the House to say, “Hang on. We want a little longer to be able to discuss this matter”, or for the Minister to put forward proposals in a debate, normally on the Floor of the House if that is requested. Therefore, if one of the cross-cutting Committees has an interest, I am sure that it would rapidly communicate it to the relevant Departmental Select Committee, and that in itself might pull the trigger. I do not think that there is a difficulty. This is not an exclusionary procedure, but simply one suggesting that someone can say, “Stop. We want this extra time so that the House can consider this on its merits”, and the decision will probably be that the departmental Select Committee is best placed to do that.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
I very much welcome what my hon. Friend is putting forward. May I ask him about joint working by Select Committees? As he knows from the passage of the 2011 Act, I have an interest in the position of S4C. There have been times in the work we have undertaken on S4C when there has been joint working between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Welsh Affairs Committee. Does he envisage such joint working continuing under this approach?
Mr Heath
I was beginning to think that we would have a short debate relating to the Act without any mention of Sianel Pedwar Cymru, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend for rectifying that omission. I reiterate that I do not think that the proposed procedure creates any obstacle to a Select Committee going about its work in the way it feels is appropriate. This is a trigger mechanism for the House. Where more than one Committee feels that they might have a role, the Liaison Committee would be able to help and ensure that there were no hurt feelings. The case of S4C might be an obvious example of where two departmental Select Committees have a legitimate interest and, I am sure, would want to express a view at some point in the procedure.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I hope to make a speech later, but, on the discussions between Departments and Select Committees, what procedures will be followed when a Department is not keen to give the most desirable outcome of 30 days’ advance notice in all cases?
Mr Heath
It is clear, from the exchanges that we have already had with the Procedure and Liaison Committees, that we expect Departments to provide that level of notice, and they will normally do so, but there is an exceptional position in the very first instance. We have some bodies on which consultations took place prior to Royal Assent, as was allowed under the legislation, and a dialogue between the Department and the Select Committee might be necessary to ensure that we achieve an acceptable result.
I know that the hon. Lady, on behalf of the Committee that she chairs, has been having such a dialogue with the Department that her Committee shadows, and I am more than happy to assist in any way that I can to ensure that we have a satisfactory outcome. I have given that assurance in correspondence with the Chair of the Liaison Committee, and I am very happy to repeat it today. The guidance to Departments will be very clear about what is expected of them in the execution of their duties under that part of the 2011 Act, and on that basis I hope my assurance is helpful to the hon. Lady. This is a new procedure, and we need to watch all new procedures very carefully to ensure that they achieve the results that the House expects of them.
In conclusion, I assure the House that I will monitor the procedure’s operation carefully to ensure that the concerns of Committees about matters on which they have sought assurances are fully responded to. I have reiterated today that the Government are very happy for the operation of the new arrangements to be reviewed about a year after they come into operation. This is an opportunity to enhance the House's scrutiny of secondary legislation, and on that basis Members should welcome it. I commend the motion to the House.
Mr Heath
With the leave of the House, I should like to thank Members for that short debate.
I shall deal with the points made in reverse order, and turn first to the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards). He will be aware that the Committee discussed the Welsh aspects of these bodies an awful lot—I remember detailed discussions of the merits, or otherwise, of Pobol y Cwm and so on. I absolutely understand the locus that regionality has in some of the bodies. The suggestion is that the departmental Select Committees have that trigger—I think that he understands that—but he made a perfectly valid point: where there is a strong territorial element in the body in question, the trigger should be exercised in the knowledge of the effect it would have in an area.
I would expect the Welsh Affairs Committee to play a part in matters relating directly to Wales and to make early representations to the relevant Select Committee, encouraging it to pull the trigger for the 60-day process. Once that process was in place and the scrutiny period under way, however, I would expect the Committee to produce a short report, particularly on matters relating to Sianel Pedwar Cymru but also on other things in which it has an interest. The report would be treated as a representation under section 11(6)(a) of the Public Bodies Act, and the Minister would have to have regard to it.
I think I can assure the hon. Gentleman, therefore, that the Welsh Affairs Committee would have a direct locus in intervening to make the House aware of its concerns. Although the Public Bodies Act stipulates that there may be a delegated powers Committee, we have made it abundantly clear that if a request was made for the matter to be dealt with on the Floor of the House it would normally be acceded to. In that case, all Members with an interest would have an opportunity to participate and make their views known before the House finally reached a decision. I hope that that goes some way to assuaging his concerns and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), who is an utterly reasonable chap. I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman agrees with him so often.
The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) expressed a number of concerns on behalf of her Committee, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which, again, I well understand. It so happens that her Committee has an early rush, as it were, on the provisions in the legislation, because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs plans to make early proposals, as she said, on British Waterways, the Inland Waterways Advisory Council and the Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances.
Let me say first that, yes, if the House accepts this Standing Order today, the hon. Lady’s Committee will be the relevant Committee. Therefore, she has that trigger in her hands—or the hands of her Committee—for extended scrutiny. I understand that that will involve a reasonable work load for her Committee. I sympathise with her about that, but I believe it is better for her Committee to do that work rather than somebody else, elsewhere in the House, who knows nothing about the subject. There is no limitation on what Committees can scrutinise in their role as departmental Select Committees. That extends not just to bodies that are listed in schedules, but to those where there are no changes. If there are no changes, she will not be acting under this procedure, but her Committee will still have the capacity to consider the matter.
I understand the hon. Lady’s point about the House of Lords having its arrangements in place earlier than the House of Commons. I would have liked to introduce things earlier, but it was important to have the conversation and dialogue with the Select Committees of this House, through the Liaison Committee and the Procedure Committee, to ensure that we got it right. This House has a much more complex Committee structure than the Lords—we have departmental Committees—so a slight asymmetry in the way we did that was inevitable. However, I hope that I can persuade her that what we are doing in this case is probably the best way forward.
As far as the hon. Member for Penistone and Stockbridge (Angela Smith) is concerned—
Mr Heath
Is that not what I said? I do apologise: Stocksbridge. Speaking as someone whose constituency name is almost always mispronounced, I have the greatest sympathy if the hon. Lady has the same problem.
I was disappointed by what the hon. Lady said. She seems to be taking up the concerns of the Liaison Committee, even though I have satisfied the Liaison Committee. The fact that it is content with my proposals is not good enough for her. She still thinks that the Liaison Committee ought to be more upset than it is. Well it is not: the Liaison Committee is satisfied with our proposals. She adduced the “mystery” of why the matter was not put before the House in December, but I made it perfectly plain that the reason was a problem with the motion, which was down to an administrative error. However, given that we could not propose the motion on that day, I aimed to derive what I hoped would be some benefit from the delay by saying that it gave us more time to explore and satisfy the concerns of the Liaison Committee and the Procedure Committee, and that is exactly what we did.
I have given clear indications about the procedures that we will adopt to ensure that Committees are not disadvantaged, but have the opportunity to make their cases properly. However, at the end of the day, I cannot go against the legislation. I cannot rip up legislation that this House and the other House passed so recently and say, “Right, we’ll now have a completely different procedure.” However, I can work within the legislation to maximise scrutiny by the Committees of this House and the wider House and ensure that every Member has the opportunity to have their say. I believe that that is what we have put before the House today, after consultation with the Committees, and I urge the House to support the motion.
Question put.
General matters
David Heath Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
The hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) said that this was an eclectic debate; “eclectic” does not begin to describe the task that lies ahead of me as I try to respond, in the next 10 minutes, to hon. Members who have spoken. As she has so many times raised the issue on which she spoke, and has not been given satisfaction from the Dispatch Box, I will deal with her point first and give her the statement that I think she was hoping for; the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), would perhaps have given it earlier, if he had had the opportunity. The commission on the West Lothian question will start work in February 2012, and will report by the end of the Session in spring 2013. My hon. Friend will make a further statement on the commission in the new year.
A spate of points were raised about foreign affairs. The right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd), and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) talked about various aspects of world affairs relating to what we loosely group together as the middle east, the Sahel and the Maghreb, as if that were all an amorphous mass, which it clearly is not. There are many countries there with different issues. In particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester raised the issues in Israel to do with the Bedouin in the south Negev desert. What brings those issues together, as far as the British Government’s position is concerned, is our commitment to human rights and developing democracy, and our wish to extend friendship, particularly to the new Governments forming in those areas, and to help them in any way that we can to achieve those objectives. Where they stray from those objectives, we might perhaps constructively point out that there are better ways of doing business. The hon. Member for Manchester Central raised the issue of Bahrain; it is very good that the King of Bahrain has appointed a commission to look into the issues, but the test is what happens to the response. Those matters were well worth raising.
The hon. Member for Falkirk (Eric Joyce), who I do not think is in the Chamber at the moment, talked about the Democratic Republic of the Congo—a long-term interest of his—and expressed concerns about the elections there. The good news from the Democratic Republic of the Congo is that there were elections, they were largely peaceful and there was a high turnout, but clearly there were problems, which were identified by a number of observers. Those are matters that the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo need to look at.
The right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) talked about the case of Bradley Manning, which is before the American courts; it is right for us to express concern and state that he should have a fair and open trial in the United States on the matters on which he was arraigned.
The hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) talked about teaching history—a subject that I raised in Adjournment debates when I was in opposition, because it is desperately important for our young people to be given a sense of history—not just national and world history but local history, so that they have a sense of identity and of the place where they live. That is a matter that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department for Education are looking at in the context of the curriculum review. The hon. Member for Kingswood made his point extremely well.
The hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) spoke about how we conduct our business in the House. It is not for me to respond to that. Perhaps it is for Mr Speaker to respond, or the Procedure Committee, but the points that the hon. Gentleman raised were sensible suggestions that ought to be considered.
Many hon. Members talked about local issues in their area. I have a great deal of fellow feeling for some of them. The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) talked about fuel poverty, a matter with which, as she rightly said, I have engaged myself over the years, particularly the difficulties of people in rural areas who often do not have access to mains gas, are reliant on fuel oil or LPG and find themselves in considerable difficulties because of the increasing costs. The Government are very aware of that.
The hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins) pointed out some successes in his constituency, in both schools and hospitals, and said something very important in support of the public sector. It is important that from the Dispatch Box we say how much we appreciate what people in the public sector do. The role that they play in society is an extremely positive contribution. I am very pleased about the successful resolution of those discussions that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced in his statement earlier today.
The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) spoke about two things. The first was high-speed broadband in his area, which he is right to say is crucial. That is why the Government are engaged in the programme, and why the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) has insisted that local authorities have a draft local broadband plan by the end of February, and have it agreed by the end of April, in order to secure matched funding. I hope the hon. Gentleman will now be able to make significant progress. Secondly, he spoke about antisocial behaviour, and was able to report progress in his area. As a former chair of the Avon and Somerset police authority, I am particularly pleased, as we share a police authority area, that Chief Constable Colin Port has been in contact and has taken such a supportive view.
The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) was guaranteed my full attention when he talked about flooding in the village of Feniton, with which he knows I am more than familiar—not with the village, but with the concept of flooding in my constituency. He went on to talk about quarrying. My constituency is the most densely populated quarrying area in the whole country. The points he raised about the aggregates sustainability fund would be echoed by many communities in my constituency.
The hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) has, I hope, guaranteed that he will be mentioned in the Sittingbourne News Extra editorial next week. From his contributions to these debates, I feel that I know an awful lot more about Sittingbourne and Sheppey than I did a year or two ago.
The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) said that he has an airport, he has docks, he has 10 stations, and then had the temerity to expect trains to stop at his stations. He wanted the roads, including the A160, to be improved, and he also spoke about Humber bridge tolls. I think that his views were compatible with those of the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), who also spoke about roads. I think they have neighbouring constituencies, so it is good that they are working together. The hon. Member for Gainsborough also mentioned Young and Safe in Gainsborough, an organisation he obviously believes does very good work. We must hope that it survives its current difficulties.
The hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) clearly has an exceedingly good company in his constituency, but spoke about the 4 metre height limit that has been proposed by the Commission. The Government agree that the 4 metre height limit is inappropriate and continue to press the Commission not to implement it. The hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) talked about the importance of manufacturing in his constituency and he is absolutely right. He also spoke about the importance of apprenticeships. I am very pleased that we have had 442,700 new apprenticeship starts in the past year, compared with 279,700 the previous year. That is a real commitment to young people getting the skills that they need.
The hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) talked about Portsmouth football club. As a former rugby player, I have to say that I am not a great expert on football, but she demonstrated the difficulty that the football authorities face in implementing the owners and directors test, which is a self-certification test based on a series of objective criteria, rather than a subjective test of individuals.
The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) talked about efficiencies in the police service, and clearly improvements can still be made in modernising the police service. The hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) included everything in his contribution, as he always does. He is a regular on these occasions and gave a superb performance.
I wish you, Mr Speaker, and all Officers and Members of the House a very happy Christmas. In particular, I wish to put on the record our appreciation of Eddie McKay, who was appointed to the House in January 1988 and is retiring this Christmas. We wish him every success and happiness in his retirement.
Mr Speaker
I thank the Deputy Leader of the House and reciprocate his good wishes.
Points of Order
David Heath Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
That is not directly a matter for the Chair, but what I can do to assist is look meaningfully, but in a typically friendly fashion, at the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House, both of whom will have heard the hon. Lady’s point of order.
Mr Speaker
Indeed, the Deputy Leader of the House is champing at the bit, as he is keen to favour the House with a response, which we will now hear.
Mr Heath
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. The hon. Lady mentioned a memory lapse, but I think she may have suffered a memory lapse since yesterday, when we had Defence questions and the Minister with responsibility for defence procurement talked about the specific matter she raises.
Mr Speaker
There may now be an outbreak of contentment, therefore, but if the hon. Lady remains dissatisfied—which I suspect is an unimaginable scenario—she will doubtless return to the issue.