Publication of Information about Complaints against Members
David Heath Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
I am grateful, as I am sure the House is, to the Standards and Privileges Committee for its work in the last Parliament, to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and to the current Chair and members of the Standards and Privileges Committee who have tabled the motions. I am grateful also to the Backbench Business Committee for providing this time today. These are the first substantive motions that have arisen from a Select Committee report to be considered on a Back-Bench day, and the Government are frankly delighted that the House can now make progress on House matters without first requiring a ministerial seal of approval. Should the motions be agreed to, they will prove that Parliament no longer needs to look to Government for help in putting its house in order, but has the independence, power and political will to do so of its own volition.
The Government fully support the three motions in the name of the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron). On the publication of information about complaints against Members, the failure to publish details of rectification has clearly led to some negative stories that have tarnished the House’s reputation. The lesson from the last Parliament is that openness is the only way to allay public unease and suspicion. The process of rectification is typically used when the commissioner is satisfied that the Member concerned has made an entirely honest mistake, acknowledged the mistake, apologised and repaid any money that was wrongly claimed. Publishing the information will briefly embarrass the Member concerned, but withholding it would be damaging for the whole House in the longer term.
I wish to make one point for the record that I hope the commissioner will bear in mind. As those who have been under investigation can testify, the knowledge that a Member is under investigation can itself damage their reputation. That can be exacerbated by the length of time that an inquiry can take—sometimes well over six months. That results in some people concluding that if it is taking that long, something must be up. To mitigate the problem, it would be sensible for the commissioner to be equally open about the process of investigation, for example by providing details of when it began and where the Member has reached in the queue for investigation. That would go some way to ensuring that while we create a more transparent approach, Members are not subjected to open season by political opponents.
Mr Sheerman
May I renew my plea that, after the reforms come in, we must not have a situation such as in the past, when some people have seemed to get a full investigation and some have been referred to the police? All of us who were in the House remember the cases of Ian Gibson and others whom we believed were not given real justice, either by the Standards and Privileges Committee or in what happened to them subsequently. Has anybody trawled back through what happened to those people, and assessed which parts were correct procedure and which were not?
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman has already intervened on the Chair of the Standards and Privileges Committee on that point, and I really do not think it is a matter for Government. It is most important that it should not be. We must have a process that is just to all concerned, but equally rigorous for all concerned. When there have been instances in which Members have sadly fallen far short of what is required not just by the rules of the House but by the rules that apply to any other citizen in the United Kingdom, it is right that investigations should take place elsewhere.
Mr Sheerman
I am not asking the Government to do anything; I am merely asking that we all reflect on the fact that those of us who were in the House before the election know that some cases were taken up and others, which we thought were even worse, were not taken up. That is the point—justice was not done on an even basis. If the three motions today will set that right, I will be happy with them. If they do not do that, I will be very unhappy.
Mr Heath
I do not think that I can add anything to what I have already said. This is a matter for the Standards and Privileges Committee and for the commissioner, and certainly not a matter for a Minister at the Dispatch Box to comment on, other than to say that I hope that justice will always be done in the most transparent way.
Mr Barron
I have two points to make in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). First, I do not believe that Ian Gibson ever went to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards or in front of the Committee. Secondly, on a wider matter, discussions are currently taking place between the compliance officer, the commissioner and others on a memorandum of understanding about referrals, and whether cases will go to different organisations rather than to the commissioner and then on to the Committee.
Mr Heath
That is a very helpful intervention, and of course the landscape has changed since a year or so ago. We now have the compliance officer in the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, who is responsible for investigating some matters. Having that memorandum of understanding seems to me a very positive way forward.
I mentioned the time that investigations sometimes take and the adverse effect that that may have on a Member’s reputation. As I said, it would be sensible for the commissioner to be open about the process of an investigation, such as when it began and where a Member had reached in the queue, to ensure that we have a more transparent approach. It is also important that Members know at the first opportunity that a matter relating to them is under investigation. It should never be the case that a Member hears that from the press or from a political opponent.
The Government support the move to give the commissioner a power to initiate investigations, which, to an extent, ties up a process started by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009. Without that power, the commissioner would not be able to act on referrals from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority compliance office. That would clearly be unsatisfactory, because the House would not be able to take action against a Member who had knowingly submitted an improper expenses claim. However, this issue goes wider than that; it is absurd that allegations about a Member’s conduct can be splashed all over the newspapers, yet the commissioner is powerless to investigate unless he receives a complaint from a member of the general public. That is an unnecessary hurdle. If we can trust the commissioner to use his good judgment to carry out investigations, we can trust him to decide when to initiate them.
Finally, the Government support the principle, first advocated by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, that the Standards and Privileges Committee should be strengthened by the presence of lay members. Although that is ultimately a matter for the House, the Government take an interest, given the commitment in the coalition agreement to establish a right to recall Members who have been found guilty of serious wrongdoing. There is obviously a potential role for that Committee in the process of adjudication on recall cases, and the presence of members from outside Parliament will help to build people’s confidence in our system of internal compliance. In supporting that, we note the concerns expressed by the Clerk of the House, to which the Chairman of the Committee referred, that if lay members are given full voting rights, they might not enjoy the protection of privilege or their presence might compromise the Committee’s position based on privilege in respect of judicial review. The Procedure Committee will want to look particularly closely at that, while the Government will be taking a close interest as part of the ongoing work on the draft parliamentary privilege Bill.
Mr Jenkin
I am very grateful that my hon. Friend has addressed the question of privilege and lay members, and I am grateful for the Government’s measured and sensible response to this approach. However, does it not begin to advance the argument in favour of having a standards committee that is separate from a privileges committee? If there really are two functions that require lay members to be involved in one function and not the other, should we not have two separate committees, permanently? I shall discuss that in my remarks later.
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, and that is another matter that the Procedure Committee needs to examine carefully. I hope that it will take full account of the recommendations that the Standards and Privileges Committee has already made on this subject, particularly on the separation of standards cases, where lay members will have a role to play, and privilege cases, which should rightly remain the exclusive business of the House. The Procedure Committee will wish to examine whether that requires two committees or the Standards and Privileges Committee meeting in a different form, with different arrangements for the two classes of consideration.
The Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee makes the important point that lay members would not necessarily require full voting rights, as long as it clearly states in the Committee’s reports whether the lay members supported the conclusions and recommendations of the rest of the Committee. That imprimatur is the important aspect in determining whether the Committee’s response not only has credibility, but is seen to have credibility by all those who are interested in the matter.
Mr Sheerman
Is the hon. Gentleman absolutely sure about all this? This is a very important point, because in his earlier remarks he said that the Government should not be involved, but he subsequently said that the recall element meant that they should be involved. The recall element is very important. Can a Member be recalled only when they have been through the Committee and been found wanting? What about Members of this House who were prosecuted, never having had the opportunity to go through—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We have to be very careful that we do not get into matters that are sub judice. I know that the hon. Gentleman was careful in what he said, but we are drifting into an area that we need to keep away from.
Mr Heath
I shall be equally careful not to enter that area, Mr Deputy Speaker. We have yet to introduce our proposals on the powers of recall; those will be in future legislation. Obviously this matter will be under consideration when we draw up the proposals for that Bill. Clearly, there is the potential for a trigger to reside with the consideration of the Standards and Privileges Committee or in a court decision. The House will have to determine that in due course. We also hope to introduce a Bill on the matter of privilege. Again, we will have to take great care to understand the points made by hon. Members in this debate and in others, and the response of the House in its decisions. We will have to ensure that we have covered, as far as is possible, any points raised on the matter of the draft legislation on privileges, which we anticipate introducing at a later stage.
Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Will the Minister give an assurance on the Floor of the House today that, whatever the Government come up with on the recall of Members of the House of Commons, there will be a parallel process for those from the other House who offend? Clearly they cannot be recalled, because they are appointed through a process of patronage rather than elected by the public. Can he assure us that they will also be held to account, in a way that they palpably have not been on their expenses scandals, which I suspect are still at a relatively early stage?
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important point. Again, I do not want to pre-empt draft legislation that has not yet been put before the House and is under consideration. As he knows, an all-party body is considering the matter of House of Lords reform, but I believe that I can, without betraying any confidences, say that it is very much in our thoughts that there has to be a process of recall for both Houses of Parliament, and for other senior elected offices, which is broadly compatible. What we should not have is a different regime in different circumstances where wholly different considerations apply. If the public are to have a power of recall, it must be applicable to senior decision-making positions in elected office across the piece. I believe that that would include the upper House but, as I say, it is not for me to pre-empt the draft Bill that I hope will be before the House early next year.
Mr Sheerman
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. How can we make a decision about this important aspect today, given that the Minister has just told us that the Government have not even decided what they are going to do about recall, or whether recall can be sparked off through the Standards and Privileges Committee or through a criminal case? What sort of rule is this?
Mr Deputy Speaker
In fairness, the hon. Gentleman has raised a point, but it is not a point of order and the House is debating the issue .
Mr Sheerman
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that, unintentionally, the Minister is misleading the House because—
Mr Deputy Speaker
That is not a point of order, but the hon. Gentleman has certainly got on the record the point that he wanted to make.
Mr Barron
What I said in my speech was that we thought that the question of lay members serving on the Standards and Privileges Committee was being held up because of the likelihood of a recall Bill. The reason the motion is on the Order Paper today is that it is about having lay members on the Committee—certainly in respect of standards—so that people can have more confidence that the Committee is not about gentlemen or gentlewomen looking after other gentlemen and gentlewomen.
Mr Heath
I thank the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee for making that clear. We have had enough of this House appearing to be a cosy club for its own benefit. The previous Parliament took steps towards improving the situation. What we are debating today is a continuation of that process, and I commend it to the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Heath Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
3. What assessment he has made of proposals for proceedings on private Members’ Bills to take place on days other than Fridays.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
The Procedure Committee has recently announced that it will conduct an inquiry into the parliamentary calendar that could consider the issue of private Members’ Bills taking place on a day other than Friday. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) has indicated, right hon. and hon. Members will have an opportunity to make representations on the issue.
Duncan Hames
I have written to the Chair of that Committee accordingly. Without a sufficient number of Members on Fridays, private Members’ Bills are at the mercy of obfuscation, filibusters and even poetry—tactics that only damage the reputation of the House. Will the Leader of the House explore ways to protect private Members’ Bills from such antisocial behaviour?
Mr Heath
I am quite sure, Mr Speaker, that in your capable hands and those of your deputies there is no question of filibustering on Fridays. Poetry, however, there may be. Whether that is antisocial or otherwise is for Members to judge. Clearly, procedural devices are sometimes used on Fridays. Any move to remove some of those devices would be a matter for the House rather than for the Government.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Does the Deputy Leader of the House agree that whatever day is chosen for private Members’ Bills, it is important that opinion on those Bills is tested in the Lobby, not talked out by dubious practices such as speaking for an hour and 39 minutes on a two-clause Bill or quoting what was very bad poetry? What can he do to protect the rights of Back-Bench Members with regard to their private Members’ Bills? Will he give the House an assurance that the Government will not use these tactics to block debate on the Gangmasters Licensing (Extension to Construction Industry) Bill, which is of vital importance for safety in the construction industry?
Mr Heath
I remember a very frustrating period of my life in the last Session of Parliament when I had a private Member’s Bill—a very important one about fuel poverty—and it seemed to me that some Members on the Government side, including the Minister, spoke at rather greater length than I had expected to avoid its making further progress. I therefore understand the point that the hon. Lady is making. I repeat, however, that this is a matter for the Procedure Committee to look at, and I am sure that she will make her observations known to that Committee.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Does the Deputy Leader of the House accept that a precedent for this arose during the passage of the City of London (Ward Elections) Bill, when the then Government used regularly to split business during a Monday or Tuesday evening to leave three hours for discussion of that Bill? It was a private Bill rather than a private Member’s Bill. Personally, I think it was a rotten Bill, and I would rather have hacked my head off than vote for it. Nevertheless, it established a precedent, and surely private Members’ Bills could be treated in the same way.
Mr Heath
I really cannot support the process of head hacking as a way of expressing dissent with what was, I think, a Bill supported by the Government of the party of which the hon. Gentleman is a member. There is a slightly different procedure for private Bills as opposed to private Members’ Bills. Again, the points that he makes should be made to the Procedure Committee, which can then take them into account when coming back to the House with recommendations.
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)
4. What discussions he has had with the House of Commons Commission on the effectiveness of orientation programmes for hon. Members after the May 2010 general election.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has had no specific discussion with the Commission on this subject, but I am sure that the whole House, particularly hon. Members elected for the first time in May this year, will wish to join me in thanking the staff of the House for the considerable effort that went into delivering the induction programme.
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend has spoken about the great successes of the programme earlier this year for new Members, but surely he must agree that existing Members should not be overlooked. I note that there is one Member who has spoken here only once since the election, has tabled no questions, and has made only five of the 131 votes that he might have made. Will my hon. Friend agree to have a word with the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), assuming that he can be found, and perhaps suggest that some orientation might be needed?
Mr Heath
I am sure, Mr Speaker, that it would be invidious to discuss the attendance record of any individual Member. It does worry me, I have to say, if some Members have problems reconciling the competing pressures of writing books and making well-paid speeches with their duties in this House. However, I hope that in the context of the present economic situation, those with particular experience of, say, ending boom and bust will feel able to contribute to our debates.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
5. What recent discussions he has had on the adequacy of the provisions in Standing Orders for debates on the Floor of the House on instruments subject to affirmative resolution.
Mr Heath
Standing Order No. 118 provides that an instrument subject to affirmative resolution shall not be referred to a Delegated Legislation Committee if a Minister has given notice of a motion to that effect. I believe that this is adequate to ensure that an instrument can be debated on the Floor of the House when there is agreement to do so.
Paul Blomfield
I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for his answer. Does he agree, however, that we will putting the cart before the horse if we debate the statutory instrument on university funding before the publication of the Government’s White Paper on higher education, simply to alleviate the discomfort of Liberal Democrat MPs?
House of Commons Commission
David Heath Excerpts(13 years, 5 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 Sir Stuart Bell be discharged and Mr Frank Doran be appointed as a member of the House of Commons Commission under the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978.
The motion simply replaces one member of the House of Commons Commission with another. The individual leaving the Commission, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell), has been a member since 2000. He is a long-standing Member of this House who has already received the signal recognition of a knighthood from Her Majesty in 2004. I am sure the whole House will want to place on the record its appreciation of his long service to the Commission under the chairmanship of two Speakers.
Mr Speaker, as you know, the last decade has not been an easy time for the Commission, dominated as it has been by the problems associated with Members’ allowances. This is not the right time to reopen old wounds, suffice to say the Commission has sometimes been identified by the outside world as a roadblock to reform. That has not always been the case. Of course there are many other areas in which the Commission has an important influence over the House, and hon. Members will wish to thank those who serve on the Commission for their contribution to the effective working of this place.
May I warmly welcome to the Commission, if the House agrees to the motion, the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran), who has been an assiduous and effective member of House Committees over the past five years as a distinguished Chair of the Administration Committee and as a member of the Finance and Service, Liaison and Accommodation and Works Committees? At a time when the Commission, quite rightly, will be considering a programme of efficiencies in the way Parliament operates, the House will be reassured by the wealth of experience and knowledge that the hon. Gentleman will bring to those discussions. I commend the motion to the House.
Points of Order
David Heath Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that ordinarily—as he would expect—the precise contents of the resolution of 19 March 1997 are firmly imprinted on my mind almost as firmly as they are on his. Nevertheless, I am happy to refresh my memory on that matter.
On the face of it, however, I have a slight suspicion that the hon. Gentleman, who is a very assiduous parliamentarian, is continuing the debate. I am not saying that there is not something upon which I need rule, but that I am not clear whether there is. Ministers can speak when they wish in relation to those matters, including when winding up debates. I sense that the hon. Gentleman is extremely dissatisfied with ministerial silence when he expected a ministerial response. That may be a matter of a point of frustration, and there might even now and again be discourtesy, but it is not apparent to me as yet that there has been a breach of order.
I know how persistent a terrier the hon. Gentleman is, and I will look into the matter and revert to him, but I do not think that he needs to make another long point of order just yet.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
On this matter, the Deputy Leader of the House might be able to provide enlightenment.
Mr Heath
The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) would be the first to make a point of order had my hon. Friend the Minister released in writing something that should properly have been put before the House—as it was—by him in a debate on the relevant subject. I can think of no better illustration of the proper way for Ministers to behave in relation to the House.
Mr Speaker
I hope that colleagues will understand if I say that at this point, pending any further study, I feel confirmed in my suspicion by that exchange that we are having a continuation of the debate. That may be stimulating, but it is not really within the realms of points of order. Someone who I am sure knows about the realms of points of order on the strength of his 26 years’ service in the House is the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash).
Points of Order
David Heath Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for his point of order, and for giving me advance notice of it. Moreover, I have of course received the letter from the right hon. Gentleman of Friday 12 November. First, I have not received any indication, formal or informal, of a statement tomorrow. Sometimes by this point I would have done, but by no means always, so there may be a statement tomorrow or there may not be. I do not know.
Secondly, I think the right hon. Gentleman would testify and the record shows that where matters are within the gift of the Chair, the instinct of the Chair is always to facilitate full and thorough debate and analysis of all matters of policy and legislation. Sadly, in relation to a matter of this kind, the decision—no matter how worthy the cause—is not in the hands of the Chair. It is a matter for the business managers. However, my eye has alighted upon the Deputy Leader of the House. The Leader of the House is not present and therefore cannot respond. The Deputy Leader of the House is present and can, if he so wishes, offer a response to the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). A simple nod or shake of the head will suffice.
Mr Heath
It is not the Government’s intention to provide extra time tomorrow on the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. It is the first day of Committee and there is at present no programme motion before the House for the conduct of business during that day, so I am confident that there will be plenty of time for the House to debate the important matters that will be put before it tomorrow.
Mr Speaker
The response of the Deputy Leader of the House has been noted and I am grateful to him for it.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
David Heath Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. We are not going to push this any further. I have made a ruling, I stand by that ruling and the Member must accept it. I call Mr Heath.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
This large group of amendments reflects a range of views about representation in the nations and the way in which the boundary commissions should go about the task of drawing up constituency boundaries.
Let me start with a simple statement of principle. In a single-Member constituency system, there must be broad equality in constituency size so that one elector means one vote between, as well as within, constituencies. I do not think that is a particularly controversial remark. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) calls it an attitude that is “crazed” and “desiccated”—it is interesting that one can be both simultaneously—but I do not accept that. My concern about the amendments in this group is that they would all compromise on equality for a range of motivations, some entirely understandable, others less so.
The amendments seek to make exceptions for, variously, the Isle of Wight, Cornwall, Ynys Môn and the highlands of Scotland, and we recognise the pride and sense of history that underpins each of these claims for special treatment. The Minister with responsibility for political and constitutional reform, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), visited the Isle of Wight on 1 October and Ministers at the highest possible level have met campaigners from Cornwall to hear their arguments. However, it is not the case that the only argument that was made was in favour of the status quo; I think the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) recognised that in a previous debate. For example, a cross-Solent constituency might have advantages. The Isle of Wight council has recently made a submission to the Government to create a Solent local enterprise partnership covering the economic area of south Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Where appropriate, therefore, the island is clearly willing to develop its long-term interests in conjunction with its mainland neighbours. There are a number of shared opportunities between the island and the mainland and I believe this willingness to engage could also be demonstrated in a cross-Solent constituency.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
Had the Government allocated enough time for us to debate this topic this evening, the hon. Gentleman would have heard a cross-section of views not only from Wales, Devon, Cornwall and colleagues from Northern Ireland and Scotland, but from the whole country, expressing concern about communities being split up and boundaries being drawn on the basis of strange anomalies or purely in accordance with mathematics. In fact, the Government are in danger of ensuring that people such as those mentioned by colleagues are under-represented in the House, not over-represented.
Mr Heath
Let me make some progress, as we have very little time.
More fundamentally, it is the duty of each MP to represent all constituents no matter whereabouts in the constituency they live. I understand the views of my colleagues from Cornwall—my hon. Friends the Members for St Ives (Andrew George) and for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson)—but I simply do not accept that Cornwall will be any the less “Cornwall” if it is represented by a Member who also represents part of Devon. I believe a Member of Parliament who is doing their job can represent constituents on either side of the Tamar equally.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Member has said he will give way a little later. Let us be a little more patient. People want to hear what is being said. [Interruption.] I am sure the hon. Member can see behind him, Mr Bryant; he does not need any assistance.
Mr Heath
I am most grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am trying to cover quite a lot of ground for colleagues in a relatively short period.
I wanted to address the issues raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber and my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso)—and I know that if my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) been able to contribute to the debate he would have said very much the same thing about the highlands of Scotland. [Interruption.] May I correct the hon. Member for Rhondda? He kept on saying that there are three exceptions in the Bill, but there are not three exceptions; there are two exceptions and they are, for very clear reasons, for the two island constituencies where contacts are very difficult. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute can make a very strong case for his own constituency as well, but I do not accept that having a maximum size—which it has been said is the size of Belgium—is unreasonable for the Scottish Members representing highland constituencies.
The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) made a very important point on Northern Ireland. I expected him to make the connection between parliamentary constituencies and Assembly constituencies. Instead, he concentrated on the quota and the Sainte-Laguë formula, and he raises an important point that we need to look at. I want to make absolutely sure that the system is fair to all parts of the United Kingdom, and I will certainly look at that point.
I find it very difficult to understand the argument that the Welsh constituencies are badly treated by being treated the same as other constituencies, such as those on my side of the Bristol channel. I do not know whether changing the name of Somerset to Gwlad yr Haf would have the desired effect of giving us twice as many representatives, but I do not accept that people in the west country should be disadvantaged in that way. [Interruption.] No, what is patronising is to pretend that we cannot go from one part of a constituency to the other because there is a hill or a river in the way. That is nonsense.
I briefly want to address the effect of Government amendments in this group, which are technical in nature. Amendments 220 and 221 allow the boundary commissions to use the most up-to-date register in areas where publication is delayed. If these amendments are not agreed to, in some areas the boundary commissions would have to use the register before the results of the annual canvass were included in it. I therefore hope we can all agree that the amendments must be made.
Amendment 21 makes consequential amendments to other legislation that refers to particular constituencies by name. We need to make that other legislation consistent with the new rules for constituencies in the Bill.
I hope the House will be able to support the Government amendments, and will reject the other amendments if they are pressed to a Division, as I believe they introduce inequalities—and inappropriate inequalities at that—that I personally cannot accept.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Sadiq Khan
With respect, may I tell the hon. Lady why she is wrong? My hon. Friends’ constituents will have their lives changed because they will have to deal with different people as a result of the boundary changes. Those changes will be made not to make things more efficient, or to save money, but because the system has, for partisan reasons, been based just on numbers. An MP’s ability to do his or her constituency a service will be affected. More importantly, however, a constituent’s ability to contact the person he or she needs to contact to improve things will also be affected.
Mr Heath
I find it extraordinary that we have these complaints from Members representing small constituencies. They say that it is quite impossible to do something that is normal for half the House. I have three local authorities in my constituency. That is normal on our side of the Bristol channel, but it is apparently impossible on the Welsh side.
Sadiq Khan
If the Minister is so confident in his arguments, why does he not allow the public to make objections and to have a local public inquiry, rather than a bureaucrat in a quango taking only written submissions before reaching a view? The Minister has to answer that question.
Another possible outcome of the proposed consultation is legal challenge by political parties, or local cross-party or apolitical campaign groups, such as Keep Cornwall Whole. Boundary commission decisions could be subject to judicial review. It is worth noting that only one judicial review resulted from the previous boundary review, but in evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, Professor Ron Johnston, who is an expert on such matters, said:
“I can well see people using it”—
judicial review—as a means of addressing
“the issues that they think they are not able to address because they are not having public inquiries.”
Excluding those cases when the only change was the name of the constituency, in the fifth periodic review of boundaries 27% of English constituencies were altered by one degree or another following a public inquiry into commission recommendations. In many cases, those inquiries looked at the local ties of a particular village or town. Most of the participants were concerned about the integrity of their local constituency.
Dr Whitehead
As my hon. Friend will know, peruse though one might, it is not possible to find such a pledge. If any party had put such a pledge in its manifesto at the last election, that itself would have been the subject of an internal public inquiry, because of what it would have said about that party’s commitment to the process of electoral change.
On the differences that the boundary reviews will make, I refer to the Isle of Wight, which is close to my constituency but separated by a substantial body of water, the Solent. The proposal, which is likely to come to pass, is that 40,000 people will be taken out of that constituency and distributed somewhere else in Hampshire—they know not where. [Interruption.] They will stay on the Isle of Wight, but for the purposes of political representation they will join another constituency.
The Boundary Commission will have a certain say in the process, because it will have to decide which 40,000 people on the island go to various other parts for their representation. It may decide that they will go to Portsmouth, to Southampton or to the New Forest. Each area has a connecting ferry service to the island, but I am not sure whether the commission can even take into account whether the people and the ferry service should be connected, given the changes that will be made and the Government’s conditions for the new arrangements.
All that will be done on the basis of a boundary commission decision—no public inquiry, some representations and no explanation. That represents a serious and fundamental change to the representation of, admittedly, just one constituency, but the process will be repeated throughout the country in a substantial if not such an extreme way, and if that is not a negation of the public’s right to understand what is happening to their own political processes, I do not what is or will be.
We must vote for amendment 15, which would reintroduce the idea of a public inquiry within particular boundaries and for particular concerns to ensure that it was conducted seriously and not frivolously. The idea that the public should have their say in who they are represented by, how they are represented and where their representation takes place has been a fundamental part of our electoral system for many years, and to throw it out of the window for expediency is a move that will be regretted and a move that we should reject.
Mr Heath
Let me start by thanking the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) for speaking to the amendment on behalf of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee on which she serves. It is a great pity that the Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), is not also present in order to support its view.
Mr Heath
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. The Select Committee has done a very good job in raising some important issues.
Amendment 205 would add a stage to the consultation process that the boundary commissions are required to carry out for the purposes of the review. Prior to making recommendations, the commissions would be required to publish online their proposed approach to the application of the rules and factors. A consultation period of eight weeks would follow, and the commissions would be required to take the results into account. We have set a deadline of October 2013 for the commissions to report to allow parties, administrators and electors to adjust to the new boundaries prior to the general election in 2015.
An increase in consultation time of eight weeks could delay the reports, making it harder to prepare for the next general election. In effect, the time added to the process by the amendment would be much greater, as the commissions would have to publicise their proposed approach and assess the representations received before taking the many and complex individual decisions required to put together their recommendations. The Government believe that the right place to debate the approach that the boundary commissions must take is in Parliament. The importance of that is highlighted by the fact that the Bill had its Committee stage on the Floor of the House. The boundary commissions will carry out the review according to Parliament’s wishes, as has always been the case.
In any event, I do not consider that the commissions’ general approach, divorced from the resulting recommendation for particular constituencies, is a subject on which wide consultation is appropriate. It is the effect of the recommendations on a person’s local constituency or local area on which it is important for them to have a say, and the Bill increases the period for them to do so. Consultation on a general approach is likely to lead to many responses that are based not on genuine concern about the approach but on guesswork as to what the effect of that approach might be in a local area. But until the commission has taken all the many individual decisions necessary to formulate its recommendations, it will be impossible to predict the effect on a particular area.
I hope that it will reassure hon. Members that during the previous review the Boundary Commission for England produced a booklet prior to the publication of recommendations which gave information about the review. There was also extensive use of the commissions’ websites to inform interested parties about all aspects of the review.
Amendment 206 proposes a new set of publicity and consultation rules under clause 10. I hope to reassure hon. Members who tabled the amendment that it is not necessary as it reflects the practice that the boundary commissions are likely to follow in any event. The boundary commissions made extensive use of the internet in publicising the last general review and, although it is for them to decide, I am confident they will do likewise this time. The information that they published at the time of their recommendations included the electorate figures mentioned in the amendment.
I believe that it is important to allow the boundary commissions discretion to present their recommendations and relevant accompanying information as they think best, taking into account the particular circumstances with which they are dealing and the changing way in which people obtain information and communicate. On that basis, while I do not disagree with the principle underlying the amendment, I do not agree that it is desirable for the Bill to particularise the commissions’ practice in legislation to the extent that the amendment proposes.
The amendment would also expressly allow representations to be made by people within or outside the affected constituency. That is presently the case, and the Bill does not change that. New section 5(1)(b) of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 follows the existing section 5(2) in that respect. The boundary commissions are likely to publish recommendations for a number of constituencies together as a scheme, and the proposals for one constituency will undoubtedly affect those for others. It is important that interested parties both from within a proposed constituency and from neighbouring constituencies may make representations to the commissions for alternative schemes that work within the rules, and the Bill does not prevent that from happening. While I understand the concerns of the hon. Member for Epping Forest, it is not necessary for the wording that appears in the amendment to be in the Bill. On that basis, I hope that she will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
I now turn to more general points about local inquiries. It was interesting to listen to the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) outline the Opposition’s case. I am glad that in this evening’s debate, we have not heard local inquiries described as appeals, because of course they are not. They are part of the process of information gathering, listening to the views of local people and weighing them up as part of the due process.
The process suggested in the Bill maintains that principle. Indeed, it actually extends it. It is vital that the boundary commissions fully consult all interested parties on proposals for changes to constituency boundaries. We all accept that. Local people in particular must be able to have their say. However, the Government believe that it would be a mistake to imagine that local inquiries achieve that objective, and there is independent support for that view. The Bill abolishes them for three major reasons. First, we simply must speed up reviews.
Mr Heath
I am telling the hon. Gentleman why, if he will just listen.
The boundaries in force in England for the first time at the general election in May were based on electoral register data that were 10 years out of date. I do not think that is acceptable, and nor should Opposition Members.
Mr George Howarth
The Deputy Leader of the House makes a fair point that those registers were out of date. Does he believe it is of equal concern that 3.5 million people will not be registered by the time the new constituency boundaries are drawn up?
Sadiq Khan
The Deputy Leader of the House will be aware that the average time taken for a review in the current system is six years. In his new system it will be three years. Bearing in mind that he has conceded that people will still be missed off the electoral register, is not the real reason for the rush that he wants the change before the next general election rather than the one after?
Mr Heath
It is hardly a secret that we want a general election based on fair constituencies, and I do not think that is an unreasonable aspiration.
The second reason why we are abolishing the public inquiries is that they do not achieve their purpose. They do not provide the boundary commissions with a good indication of local opinion to aid them in the process of drawing up constituencies. [Hon. Members: “How do you know?”] I will tell Members how I know—academics have been clear on that point for a number of years. Professors Butler and McLean, in their evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2006, argued that a faster approach could
“simplify the system without leading to any significant decline in equity.”
Oral inquiries were described by Professor Ron Johnston and his colleagues, whom the right hon. Member for Tooting quoted several times, as
“very largely an exercise in allowing the political parties to seek influence over the Commission’s recommendations—in which their sole goal is to promote their own electoral interests.”
That is why the right hon. Gentleman and his friends like the system at the moment. It gives the power to the parties, not to the public.
Sadiq Khan
The Deputy Leader of the House makes an interesting point and quotes a generalised point that the professor made, but did not he and many other experts also make the specific point that bearing in mind the huge changes that are to be made, this is the one occasion if any when a public inquiry is essential?
Mr Heath
No, it is the one occasion when it is absolutely essential that we have the fullest possible consultation process, and that is why we are extending the consultation period for three months, allowing every single person to have their say, not just the political parties that want to turn up at public inquiries. I hope the right hon. Gentleman recognises that.
Mr Heath
No, I have got to make progress.
The third reason for abolishing inquiries is that they rarely lead to significant changes in recommendations. The statistics that are often prayed in aid of local inquiries usually group together many different constituencies and include changes solely to the names of constituencies, to inflate the figure of the proportion that lead to change. The truth, as Professor Johnston told the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, is:
“Public inquiries often have no impact.”
The changes are frequently minor. For example, at the time of the fifth general review in England, only 2% of wards in counties where inquiries were held were moved between constituencies as a result.
What the Bill does—[Interruption.] No, let us deal with what the Bill actually does. It improves the process of public consultation, so that the public will be better able to have their say on proposals. That is why we are extending the period for representations on proposals from one month to three. Where a boundary commission revises proposed recommendations, the period of consultation on the revised proposals will be the same.
In making that decision, the Government have considered the approach taken in other nations. We looked at the example of Australia, which has a 28-day consultation period for proposed recommendations, followed by 14 days for comments. The Government propose a longer consultation period of three months.
Mark Durkan
The Deputy Leader has said that where a boundary commission reviews its recommendations, they will be subject to a further period of consultation, but a second revision will be final, and there will be no consultation. An appeal will involve people turning to the Secretary of State, who may, under the Bill, prepare an Order in Council with or without modification. The Secretary of State can therefore change things, but the public cannot appeal.
Mr Heath
I would answer the hon. Gentleman in two ways, and I know that he takes a serious interest in these matters. The second inquiry, as he puts it, does not happen now. Once a boundary commission makes its final conclusions, that is the end of the story—and there has to be an end to the process. In the Bill, we are establishing a longer and more thorough process of consultation, all of which will be in the open, rather than in secret, because it will all be published and available for people to see. That is a fairer way of doing things than having highly paid QCs representing two big parties simply making partisan points in front of an assistant commissioner.
Mr Heath
We did not propose legislation on the Boundary Commission at that point, but we are doing so now, and those are the proposals before the hon. Gentleman. He must look at them and see whether they make sense. I believe that they do.
During our discussions, we have had a flavour of some of the arguments that are put before commissioners in public inquiries. We have had people claiming that constituencies can never cross a river. We have had Members complaining that they cannot have a connection to more than one local authority in their constituency. Those are the sorts of spurious argument that a public inquiry throws out of court every time.
Sadiq Khan
The Deputy Leader of the House quoted Professor Johnston out of context and now has issues with lawyers earning lots of money in inquiries. Will he confirm that Professor Johnston said:
“I can well see people using”
judicial review
“as a reason for addressing the issues that they think they are not able to address because they are not having public inquiries”?
Does the Minister agree with Professor Johnston or does he not?
Mr Heath
If each of the boundary commissions does a thorough job, which I fully expect them to, and takes the proper matters into consideration, I do not expect an increase in judicial review. That is my answer to the right hon. Gentleman. He mentions the fact that he is a lawyer and that I do not like highly paid lawyers very much, but I am surprised that he decries the idea of submissions being made in writing rather than orally, because that is a well-known and fundamental principle in law.
The improved process in the Bill will deliver faster reviews. Time-consuming public inquiries that do not bring new arguments to the table and which are dominated by parties attempting to advance their electoral interests are not beneficial in Northern Ireland or anywhere in the UK. I urge hon. Members not to press the amendments.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Heath Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
4. What progress has been made on the establishment of a House business Committee.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
The Government are committed to establishing a House business committee. The Backbench Business Committee, of which the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) is a member, has got off to a good start, and we shall seek its views on how the House business Committee might operate.
Mr Hollobone
Is it the intention of the Deputy Leader of the House that once the House business Committee is established it will subsume the Backbench Committee, or will the two Committees carry on in parallel?
Mr Heath
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question. It is a fairly complex matter. If he re-reads the Wright Committee report, he will see that there is a degree of ambiguity about the precise interrelationship. I think the assumption is that the two Committees should sit alongside one another, with some common membership, but it is an area we need to discuss in detail with him and his hon. Friends on the Backbench Business Committee, and more widely in the House, so that we establish a system that will work for the whole House and make sure that both Back-Bench business and the interests of the House as a whole are protected.
Graham Evans
Does my hon. Friend agree that the creation of the Backbench Business Committee was a necessary step to restore the value of Back-Bench business, which was badly neglected under the previous Government?
Mr Heath
My hon. Friend will not be surprised to know that I entirely agree with him on that point. The Backbench Business Committee has made a good start in ensuring that important matters are brought before the House in a timely way. My greatest regret is the fact that the previous Government took so long to accede to the very reasonable request from the Wright Committee and many Members on both sides of the House to make that happen.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I warmly congratulate the Government on introducing the Backbench Business Committee, but can the Deputy Leader of the House guarantee that in future—as there always was in the past—there will be a European affairs debate before a European Council meeting and a full statement from the Prime Minister afterwards? This week, a European Council meeting will decide things such as our relationship with Russia and whether there should be Europe-wide regulation of the financial services industry, but the House will have not a single debate on it.
Mr Heath
I can only say to the hon. Gentleman that the arrangement of statements is, of course, a matter for the Government. Other debates, as the Wright Committee clearly sets out, are a matter for the Backbench Business Committee. I am sure that his comments were heard by the Committee.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
One of the most important reasons for setting up a House business Committee is to protect the rights of Members. Such a committee will not be set up in time to deal with the fiasco of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, but will the Deputy Leader of the House assure us that he will protect the rights of Members of this House by ensuring that the statutory instruments relating to the Bill are debated before Report, and that he will place a record of the Government’s discussions with the devolved Assemblies in the Library? Is it not right that matters concerning elections to this House should be debated first here and not in the unelected House?
Mr Heath
The right hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position that he does recognise the word “fiasco”, but the only fiasco I have come across in the course of our debates is the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) speaking for 50 minutes without mentioning his amendments. That may have been part of the problem of timing in relation to the Bill.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
2. What plans he has to increase the opportunities available for debate of Select Committee reports on the Floor of the House.
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
7. What proposals he plans to put to the House in respect of the structure of the parliamentary calendar for the remainder of the current Session.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House announced the proposed parliamentary calendar until the end of 2011 last Thursday at the commencement of business questions, and I hope right hon. and hon. Members will have had the opportunity to pick up a copy.
Jason McCartney
I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for that answer, which will allow me and many colleagues in the House to plan our next few months in our constituencies. Can he help me plan the next four and a half years in my constituency, by giving the House an update on the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill?
Mr Heath
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have had the Second Reading of that Bill. It should go into Committee shortly. I hope it will be able to make speedy progress, given the degree of consensus that exists across the House, and we hope it will receive Royal Assent at the earliest opportunity.
Rehman Chishti
Does my hon. Friend agree that plans to reform the parliamentary calendar will enhance the ability of the House to scrutinise and debate effectively the Government’s proposed legislation for this Session?
Mr Heath
It is important that the House has the fullest possible opportunity to hold the Government to account. One of the difficulties that we had previously when the House did not sit in September was that there was a large part of the year when the actions of Ministers could not be scrutinised by the House. My answer to the hon. Gentleman is yes, I do think that is the case, but we can still do better. That is why I am convinced that we should continue the discussion about how we can best organise the parliamentary calendar to enable the House to do its job as effectively as possible.
Amber Rudd
Does my hon. Friend agree that if we have more transparency and clarity in the calendar, it will stop giving the impression, which we may have got with the previous Government, of legislation being railroaded through?
Mr Heath
I agree entirely. If we can make sure that plenty of days are allocated for, for instance, the Committee and Report stages of Bills, which the Government have been committed to doing, and if we can ensure that the House uses that time sensibly and adopts a rational approach to the important things that need to be debated at length and those that may not need to be debated at quite such length, the House can start to look like a grown-up legislature able to do its job effectively.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
But is it not the case that even in the timetable that has been announced, we still have an extremely long summer recess in which Ministers will not be held to account in the House? Would it not be sensible if, instead of running days on unpredictably until late at night, we used more days during the summer to hold the Government to account, rather than holding them to account between 10 o’clock and 11 o’clock at night?
Mr Heath
The hon. Lady has expressed that view before. I do not entirely agree that we have an overlong summer recess, with the September sittings. That makes a huge difference to the way in which the House does its business. I also do not entirely agree that sittings are unpredictable. Where we have provided additional time, it has been in response to expected statements, to make sure that the House has protected time to do its business. We are constantly responding to the hon. Lady’s Front-Bench team demanding more time and longer sittings to scrutinise Bills effectively. We must get the right balance. We will look at the matter in more detail. The Procedure Committee has said that it will look at the calendar in the round, and she may want to give evidence to the Committee on her views.
Diana R. Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
8. What steps he plans to take to provide further opportunities for pre-legislative scrutiny of Government legislation; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
We have announced the publication of our four draft Bills in this Session. That is the same as in four of the five Sessions of the previous Parliament. More draft Bills are being prepared and I hope we will have a more impressive total by the end of the Session.
Diana R. Johnson
Is not the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill a lesson in how not to legislate? Despite it being a major constitutional change in this country, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny. As I understand it, the Government are tabling hundreds of Government amendments while it is on the Floor of the House. Should not the Government rethink this, abandon the Bill and bring back one that has been properly thought through?
Mr Heath
The hon. Lady is pursuing this argument. Early in the lifetime of a Government, there will, of course, be some Bills that are not available for pre-legislative scrutiny, simply because—apart from anything else—otherwise the House would be sitting here with nothing to do. That is why we have ensured that these important Bills are debated on the Floor of the House, where they can receive the longest possible scrutiny. I hope that, by the completion of all its parliamentary stages, every part of the Bill she mentioned will have been available for scrutiny, if hon. Members wish to pick up any specific points. I simply do not believe that there is an alternative way of doing business. Having said that, our normal practice will be to introduce important Bills in draft, as has been clearly stated. There are more Bills in the pipeline, and she will find that, by the end of the Session, considerably more Bills will have been considered in draft than in the previous Session.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
10. What progress has been made on the establishment of a House business Committee.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave earlier.
Robert Halfon
Does my hon. Friend agree that the House business Committee, allied with the Backbench Business Committee and the elections to Select Committees, has restored the balance of power between Parliament and the Executive? What other steps is he taking to redress that balance?
Mr Heath
We have already introduced quite a hefty group of reforms. I place on the record again my gratitude to the Wright Committee for its work, although I do not think that its proposals are necessarily the end of the story. I hope that the work of the Procedure Committee and the work that we will continue to do in bringing forward suggestions from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and myself will give us the opportunity to ratchet up steadily the involvement of individual Members of the House, to enable them to do the job that they were sent here to do on behalf of their constituents, which is to represent their constituents properly and to hold the Government to account in both their legislative and executive functions. The previous Parliament was incapable of doing that simply because of the restrictions placed on it. I hope that we can now make steady progress in improving the reputation of the House.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
But is not part of the job of an MP to introduce private Members’ Bills when they come first, or even ninth, in the ballot? It is vital that the House looks closely at private Members’ Bills and at the Committee stages to ensure that we are able to bring measures to the House and get them enacted?
Mr Heath
We need to consider urgently how we scrutinise private Members’ legislation. The Procedure Committee is currently looking at that, and I hope that it will make proposals in the near future. Meanwhile, we will have to consider—my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is considering this—how we best use the time made available by the slightly longer Session than usual to enable greater scrutiny and greater opportunities for private Members’ legislation already in the pipeline.
Pete Wishart
Will the hon. Gentleman assure me that the House business committee will be a Committee of the whole of the House, not just the Government parties and the Labour Opposition? What is he and the Leader of the House doing personally to ensure that smaller parties are properly represented on the new Committee?
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman knows, because we discussed the matter very early in this Parliament, that the Wright Committee was not terribly helpful in its proposals to him and his colleagues. Having committed ourselves to implementing the Wright Committee, we were left in some difficulties. However, we need to ensure that the voices of smaller parties in the House are clearly heard. I hope that he will take part in the necessary discussions about the establishment of the House business committee to ensure that that is done in good order and in a way that is consistent with the Wright Committee proposals while reflecting best practice in the House.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
David Heath Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)
I remind the Committee that with this we are taking the following:
Amendment 341, page 6, line 35, leave out ‘2013’ and insert ‘2018’.
Amendment 342, page 6, line 36, leave out ‘fifth’ and insert ‘tenth’.
Amendment 38, page 6, line 36, at end insert—
‘(3A) After subsection (2) there is inserted—
“(2AA) The boundary review due to be completed by the date set out in subsection (2)(a) above shall not begin until both Houses of Parliament have approved a report from the Electoral Commission certifying that in its opinion sufficient measures have been taken to provide for the registration of eligible voters.”.’.
Amendment 70, in clause 9, page 7, line 32, at end insert—
‘(1A) This rule is subject to an independent assessment of the Boundary Commission as to the potential electorate within any area where the Commission, having consulted—
(a) the Electoral Commission,
(b) the Registration Officer of the local authority or authorities in that area,
(c) such other organisations and individuals whom the Boundary Commission may choose to consult,
determine that the difference between the registered electorate and the assessed numbers eligible to be registered is so significant as to give rise to concern about the number of people to be served within such constituencies as would otherwise be created by rule 2(1) above.’.
Amendment 125, page 10, line 2, leave out from ‘persons’ to end of line 6 and insert
‘who are estimated by the Office of National Statistics to be eligible to vote in United Kingdom parliamentary elections, whether or not they are so registered to vote.’.
Amendment 135, in clause 16, page 13, line 5, at end insert
‘with the exception of Part 2, which will not come into force until—
(a) after the referendum on the determination of powers devolved to the National Assembly for Wales under the terms of the Government of Wales Act 2006; and
(b) the Electoral Commission has reported to the House of Commons, that over 95% of eligible voters in each local authority area are estimated to be on the electoral register.’.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
I welcome you back to the Chair, Ms Primarolo, and to the consideration of clause 8. I am delighted that we can continue debating amendment 127. Of course, we would not have been able to do this if the Opposition’s attempt to prevent us from doing so, when we dealt with the timetable motion yesterday, had succeeded. When I was last speaking to this group of amendments, we were having a brief exchange on the matter of Wales. I do not want to continue that exchange, because we need the opportunity to discuss the much more important issues relating to Wales and the other parts of the United Kingdom under clause 9, which I hope we will reach shortly.
I was also considering the amendments proposed by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). One of the great advantages of having an overnight break is that we can look back at the Official Report and read what the protagonists have said. I looked back through the report of the 50 minutes that the hon. Gentleman took in proposing his amendments and found that he did not, as I had suspected, mention them once during those 50 minutes. We know not from him what the content of the amendments is. So I propose to move on from the hon. Gentleman to the right hon. and hon. Members who contributed something positive to the debate.
Much of what we heard was about registration and the fact—it is a fact—that many people do not appear on the electoral register. The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer)—I am glad to see him in his place—made clear his view on that, and said, I think, that we were moving to a system whereby 3.5 million people are not on the register. I disagree with him about that. We are not moving to a system whereby 3.5 million people are not on the register; we are already at that stage, and have been for a very long time. The disgrace is that we have been so unsuccessful in dealing with the parts of the country where registration is insufficient.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) set out some of the reasons why we will never achieve 100% registration, given the difficulties involved. He is absolutely right, and I do not disagree with his analysis in any way. That is why the Government are introducing proposals at least to help the process and get as many people as possible on to the register.
The difficulties that we have with the amendments fall into two groups. They would change the basis on which boundary reviews are effected, moving away from the number of registered electors to some other basis, whether an estimate of eligible electors or an estimate of population. Alternatively, they suggest that we delay the process and make it longer, by a variety of mechanisms. I do not believe that that is the right way forward. The proper course of action is to ensure that the register is as accurate as possible. As I have said, the Government are taking action to improve the registration system.
Amendment 125 would require the boundary commissions to use an estimate of eligible electors, to be provided by the Office for National Statistics. The ONS does not at present make any estimate of eligible electors. Census data are available, but a census is carried out only once a decade, does not cover eligibility to vote and may contain inaccuracies. Indeed, in evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the secretary of the Boundary Commission for Scotland said that there would be “significant practical problems” with using population rather than registered electorate for the purposes of the boundary review. It was mentioned that the electoral register is published annually, whereas the census, which does not record whether a person is eligible to vote, is published every 10 years.
Delaying the boundary reviews would simply make the information on which they are based more inaccurate. The general election held last May was based on electoral registration data 10 years out of date. That cannot be right, and that is my difficulty with amendments 341 and 342, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland). Those amendments would not only delay the initial review, but halve the frequency of such reviews, by requiring the boundary commissions to report before 1 October 2018, instead of 2013, and every 10th year after that, instead of every fifth year. That would simply make an unacceptable situation worse.
The Government’s proposals build on the existing arrangements for boundary reviews, which have been based on the electoral register for decades. It is right that we take action in support of complete and accurate registers, and the Government are taking that action. On that basis, I urge right hon. and hon. Members not to press their amendments.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
We have had 51 speakers—or rather, 52, counting the Deputy Leader of the House, who has just spoken. Despite his rather petulant and “ad hominate” speech last night, we have none the less had a good debate. He did, however, correctly excoriate me for not fully adumbrating the amendments that we tabled. That was partly because I took 31 interventions, more than half of which were from Government Members, but perhaps it would be of assistance if I were now to explain precisely why our two amendments are important.
The Deputy Leader of the House was quite right last night to say that our two amendments, 127 and 135, which refer to different parts of the Bill, are not necessarily readily comprehensible at first sight—partly because one refers to clause 8 and the other to clause 16. Both appear at different points in the amendment paper. Consequently, Members will have to turn to pages 429 and 445 to find them.
Amendment 127 would include in clause 8 the words
“within twelve months of part 2 of the…Act…coming into force in accordance with section 16(2) thereof’.”
In other words, the Boundary Commission would produce its report within 12 months of an addition to clause 16(2), which we would insert through amendment 135, stating,
“after the referendum on the determination of powers devolved to the National Assembly for Wales under the terms of the Government of Wales Act 2006”.
The Deputy Leader of the House rightly told me off last night for not explaining precisely why we believe that that is important. As I tried to say in yesterday’s debate, historically, we have constructed Parliament in this country by determination according to the four different constituent parts of the Union. That has included the representation that each part requires in order for the Union to be solid and hold together, which is precisely what happened in the 1536 Act of Union, the 1707 Act of Union and the 1801 Act of Union. With all three, the first thing determined was how much representation there should be from Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Obviously, that was subsequently changed with the creation of the Irish Free State.
The further change to Scottish representation occurred when we introduced devolution, so, following the Scotland Act 1998, it was agreed that because a variety of powers would be given to the Scottish Parliament, it was right and proper for the number of seats that Scotland accounted for in the Westminster Parliament to be reduced.
The first referendum in Wales on devolution brought about the creation of the National Assembly for Wales, which does not have law-making powers or enjoy any powers over crime, justice or policing, so it is a somewhat different body from the Scottish Parliament. However, there is a proposition that follows on from the Wales Act 2006, and it will be tested in a referendum, which the Government have said will take place in the first quarter of next year, but for which as yet no date has been set. The Welsh Assembly Government have requested that it should be on 3 March, but the Secretary of State for Wales has not yet assented to that. We do not know whether a date has been agreed or whether the referendum will proceed. The date of 3 March may well be problematic, as—how can I put it?—it sometimes rains in Wales in March. Sometimes we have fairly excessive conditions in large parts of Wales at the beginning of March, so the date may well end up being inappropriate.
However, be that as it may, we need to be assured of what powers the Welsh Assembly will have if we are then to have a coherent Union-based understanding of how much representation there should be from Wales in the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is why we have tabled the two amendments, and I shall press them to a Division, because I have not heard anything from the Deputy Leader of the House to alter my opinion that we should proceed on a Union-based understanding of how we create this House, not on a purely mathematically based assumption.
Mark Durkan
The amendment would represent a very important reassurance, because the Minister would not be able to make highly arbitrary and subjective judgments on any modifications that were introduced. As my hon. Friends have pointed out, we are being asked to consider a situation in which, in every Parliament, there will be a boundary review in respect of the next Parliament. That means that in each Parliament, and in each Government, the relevant Minister will in effect have his or her hands on a boundary review. That fundamentally changes the political nature of the operation, and it might be abused. I am thinking not only of one party against another; it could be abused within a party. It could become yet another of the Whips’ weapons against recalcitrant Government Members—they could say, “Look, we can redistrict you.” That is what has happened in the United States. We find many former members of Congress who say that they were blatantly redistricted by their own parties because they did not fit or did not particularly toe the line. We have seen that happen in various states.
The arrangements provided in the Bill are pregnant with the possibility of abuse or accusations of abuse. The parliamentary process needs to be protected from that. The House has made a mistake in accepting boundary reviews every five years rather than every 10 years. That means that every Parliament will be affected and infected by the issue and the controversy around it. If Ministers want to be free from that, they should agree to the amendment.
Mr Heath
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) for moving the amendment. I give my best wishes—and, I am sure, those of the whole Committee—to the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, who would normally have been here to speak about its proposals.
We have had a short and helpful debate. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has told us about the derivation of the word “gerrymander” again; hopefully, we will hear that each day this Committee sits. It worries me when the hon. Gentleman talks about due process: the more he talks about it—and it is not the issue before us at this stage—the more I think he does not know what it means. We will come back to that later.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) assumed a position on the part of the Government without knowing what it was. I suggest to her that that is not a sensible way to go forward; that is meant to be helpful. We are grateful to her.
The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) got the tone exactly right. There is an issue, and we understand that. The amendment would allow the Order in Council laid before Parliament to give effect to the boundary commissions’ recommendations with modifications only if the commissions were content with the changes made. As we have heard, the existing legislation does not have a restriction on modification such as that proposed by the amendment. The Bill simply preserves that power.
There is no record of that power ever having been used. There was an instance in which a Government urged Parliament to reject boundary commission proposals in toto rather than modify them, and some would suggest that that in itself was an abuse, but a Government have never urged Parliament to modify such proposals, so there is no history on the issue. However, I entirely understand the desire expressed by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee to ensure the independence of the boundary commissions and see that their work is not modified for partisan reasons by any Government.
I say to the hon. Member for Epping Forest that the Government would like to consider the matter in more detail. There might be a situation in which, for the timely implementation of the boundary commission’s recommendations, any unintended errors in the reports would need to be corrected in the Order in Council. We would want to consider carefully how any such restriction on the power to include modifications in the Order in Council might work.
There may be a technical defect in what the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee has brought forward. That is not a criticism of its work. The amendment appears to require all four boundary commissions to agree to any modification, rather than the relevant commission or commissions for the part or parts of the United Kingdom where the modification is being made. We may have to look at how the amendment is cast.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
I did not jump into the trap that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) jumped into. However, I want to intervene to say that I would feel quite differently if the hon. Gentleman gave an undertaking that if he found some technical concern about the wording, he would bring back an amendment that made sure that no changes could be made to boundaries by a Minister without the consent of the boundary commission for the relevant region.
Mr Heath
The hon. Lady has been in government so she knows the constraints within which we work.
I am very sympathetic to the views expressed in the amendment, and we will have to look at it further. That is not an attempt to fob off the hon. Member for Epping Forest or the Select Committee. It raises an important issue. I do not want there to be any circumstances in which a Government can apply a partisan consideration to a modification for a boundary commission response. I give a clear undertaking that the Government will consider the matter in detail and come back with a response in due course. I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment on the basis that we will look at the matter further and that we are grateful to the Committee for having brought it to our attention.
Mrs Laing
I thank the Minister for the serious way in which he has considered the amendment.
I appreciate the position taken by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), but the Select Committee has not suggested that the proposals in the Bill avoid due process. I would argue personally, not necessarily on behalf of the Committee, that the proposals in the Bill do involve due process, but that that is not a matter which hon. Members should worry about. That is not the problem before us right now—the problem is simply whether the Government could, at some point in the future, take action without the agreement of the boundary commissions. I am pleased that the Minister has accepted that that is an issue. Every member of the Select Committee will be very pleased that its work has, at least in this respect, been seen to be worth while and contributing to improving the Bill, which was our purpose in submitting the amendment. Having heard the general arguments put this afternoon, including by the shadow Minister, I believe that it may have to be tightened up somewhat in its wording and technicalities.
I am delighted that the Minister has indicated that the Government will look in more detail at the matter and undertaken to come back to the House with it. Given that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Mr Heath
I beg to move amendment 162, page 7, line 22, at end insert—
‘( ) In Article 3 of the Lord President of the Council Order 2010 (S.I. 2010/1837) (which makes certain functions of the Secretary of State exercisable concurrently with the Lord President) the reference in paragraph (1) to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 is to be read as a reference to that Act as amended by this section.’.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 163 to 167.
Mr Heath
These are minor amendments to clarify the position on ministerial responsibilities in relation to the constituencies provisions of the Bill. Responsibility for elections law, including parliamentary constituencies, is now exercisable by the Lord President and the Secretary of State, as my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, as Lord President of the Council, now has responsibility for political and constitutional reform. That was effected by the Lord President of the Council Order 2010, which provides that functions under various Acts, including the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, are exercisable concurrently by the Lord President and the Secretary of State. In the case of that Act, “the Secretary of State” includes the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, who retain functions relating to boundary commissions in their parts of the United Kingdom.
The order states that references to the 1986 Act include references to it as amended by any enactment already made but not yet in force. It is arguable that that implies that such a reference does not include a reference to that Act as amended by a subsequent enactment. The amendment therefore provides that the reference to the 1986 Act in the order is to be read as a reference to the Act as amended by the Bill.
Amendments 163 to 167 are to clause 11 on the relationship between the changes to parliamentary constituencies and the constituencies of the National Assembly for Wales. They make similar changes to those in the Lord President of the Council Order 2010, so that the clause refers to both the Secretary of State and the Lord President of the Council, and not just to the Secretary of State. That is done in the same way as in part 1 of the Bill, which provides that the Minister means the Lord President or the Secretary of State. I hope that that is perfectly clear to the Committee.
Chris Bryant
These amendments seem perfectly sensible and we have no problem with them. We hope that they will go forward immediately.
Amendment 162 agreed to.
Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 68), That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Chris Bryant
No, I am not saying that the task is insuperable. Of course it would be possible to draw up the constituencies in the way proposed, but why should one constituency then end up with 95% of the average electorate and another with 105%? [Interruption.] The Deputy Leader of the House keeps on referring to the Rhondda. He obviously has some desire either to do down the people of the Rhondda or to visit the Rhondda, but I am not extending an invitation to him.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman should not misrepresent what I have said. He knows perfectly well that I have never said that there should be a divergence between his constituency with 82,000 possible voters, and mine with 51,000. I am wholeheartedly in favour of greater equalisation. I have argued that for a long time, and the Labour party and its predecessors, going way back to the Chartists in the 1840s, argued for greater equalisation of seat sizes. But if we are to move towards equalisation do we add, on top of that, the idea of a fixed number of seats? That is what I am querying.
Austin Mitchell
I was hoping that the SNP would appoint me Fisheries Minister for Scotland, but that post would have been a little difficult to handle from Grimsby. I never even achieved the rank of PPS to the Minister—[Interruption.] I apologise, Ms Primarolo. I was led astray.
There is a genuine issue about the service that we provide to our constituents. I know that we have changed over the years from senators to servants of our constituency, and I know that the amount of work has steadily increased. That is a necessary development, because our constituents want to be heard more. We no longer have the same sort of subservient, quiet and loyal electorate that would vote for parties and did not want their voice to be heard. People want to be heard and they want us to listen to them. They want to communicate with us and they want us to raise the problems that they raise with us. That is the job, and we would be less able to do that if there were fewer of us here.
Mr Heath
I am bemused by this concept that the figure of 600 would prevent Members of Parliament from being able to represent their constituents adequately, because the electoral quota suggested—about 76,000—already applies to a third of the House, give or take 5%. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that a third of Members are incapable of representing their constituents properly?
Austin Mitchell
The bigger the size of the constituency and the electorate, the harder it is to represent them adequately. It may be that evening up constituencies leads to areas being more adequately represented, because those areas will have smaller constituencies, but in my case it will mean a bigger constituency, and many of us are struggling to do the job now.
For example, the amount of mail is increasing all the time. Not so long ago, I read the biography of Hugh Gaitskell by Philip Williams, which was about Gaitskell in the 1950s. It said that Gaitskell’s papers showed that in 1958, when he was the MP for Leeds South East, he got 50 letters a month from his constituents. I get 50 letters every couple of days, and that is in addition to all the e-mails, surgery visits and stoppings in the street in Grimsby, with people asking whether I will ask this or do that, and so on, all of which I have to scribble down. That must mean that in a larger constituency it is more difficult to serve everyone in it. That is an obvious fact. Indeed, it is getting difficult to do the job adequately with 650 Members. We need more and more staff. Fortunately, we have been given more staff, but it is not enough, although it depends on the seriousness with which one does the job.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I shall speak to my amendments 67 and 68. Amendment 67 would substitute the figure of 600 for 585. I tabled the amendment because at the last general election the Conservative party manifesto, on which I was privileged to be re-elected, referred to 585 seats. I have to say that I had some reservations about that part of our manifesto, because I felt that it introduced a degree of inflexibility where, as we have heard from the Political and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Boundary Commission, it is desirable to leave the Boundary Commission with some flexibility in considering these important issues. From the outset of this Parliament, however, I have been trying to get a straight answer—either from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) or the Deputy Leader of the House—to the question why the figure of 600 was chosen.
I take very seriously the allegation made today by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that the figure of 600 was chosen for politically partisan reasons rather than for objective reasons pertaining to good government. I look forward to the Government responding in detail to the question of why 600, rather than 585, which was in our manifesto, was chosen. I note that the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) is not yet in his place to speak to his amendment 74. It is a corresponding amendment from the Liberal Democrats, calling for a reduction to 500, which was the exact figure that the Liberal Democrats included in their manifesto, on which the hon. Gentleman was re-elected to this House. This is a very serious issue.
The suggestion that the figure of 600 has been plucked out of the air has rather damaging connotations for the credibility of the coalition Government. Let us examine the difference between 600 and 585. With 600 seats, there would be roughly 75,000 to 76,000 electors per constituency. With 585—in other words, a reduction of 2.5% on the 600 figure—an average of 1,800 or so electors would be added to every constituency. Is anyone in government arguing that it is on account of that crucial increase of another 1,800 electors per constituency that we have opted for the 600 figure rather than 585—itself a conveniently round number in the sense that it was a 10% reduction on the present size of the House?
Mr Heath
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but there is nothing magical about the figure of 600, just as there is nothing magical about 585. One was a 10% reduction; the other a round figure reduction of 50. The figure is not magical; it is simply an arbitrary figure that reduces the size of the House in a way that I believe is consistent with the public mood and the needs of this House.
Mr Chope
The hon. Gentleman says that it is an arbitrary figure; I am pleased that he concedes that. He says that it is consistent with the public mood, so let us examine that proposition and let us hope that he will provide some evidence for it when he responds to this debate in due course. He also says that the figure is consistent with the needs of this House. Where is the evidence for that? Why should this House comprise 600 rather than 585 Members? If, by referring to the public mood, the hon. Gentleman means the public’s concern about the costs of Parliament, why at the same time as reducing the size of this House are we merrily increasing the number of people in the other place, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) asked? Indeed, as he told us, the number has already increased by more than the proposed reduction here.
The Government are proposing to reduce the number of Members of Parliament by 50, but they have already increased the number of Members in the other House by well over 50—getting on for 60—and there is a prospect of substantial further increases. Where is the case for that? How can increasing the size of the unelected House at considerable additional public expense, while at the same time reducing the size of the elected House, accord with the public mood?
Mr Heath
On the very last point that the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) made, I think I recall that there is a Senator in the Italian Senate who represents Australia, Asia and Africa. That is a sizeable constituency and not one that I would suggest for this House.
This has been an interesting debate in many ways. First, I am glad that we have had the opportunity to have the debate on the clause at all. Had the attempt by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) to vote down the programme motion yesterday been successful, we would not have had a debate at all. I am also pleased that we have had the extra hours this evening, because had the hon. Gentleman succeeded in voting the motion down, we would not have had them. Unfortunately, he then—again—filled the extra time with the 50 minutes of his speech.
I am also pleased because we have had a number of what I would consider to be doctrinal statements made. We had a doctrine laid out by the hon. Member for Rhondda for a new principle of consideration for constitutional Bills, in which we should allocate one day on the Floor of the House for each clause of a constitutional Bill. I recall the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, in which I was involved, as were many other hon. Members who were in the House at the time. It had 95 clauses and eight schedules and it had three days in Committee. That was what the Labour party did when they were in Government and it ill behoves them to suggest that the greatly longer time that we have given this Bill is insufficient.
We also had discussion about what the Salisbury-Addison convention might mean. I have a quotation from the former Lord High Chancellor—I do not know whether it is a ex cathedra statement, but it certainly approaches that—about how the House of Lords ought to apply its own judgment on the Salisbury-Addison convention in the context of a coalition. This is what the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) had to say in 2006:
“My own view is that if any coalition or arrangement as in 1977 gains the support of the democratically elected House and is endorsed by a motion of confidence then the programme for which they gain that endorsement should be respected by”
the House of Lords. That is an extremely helpful endorsement that may be noted.
The other place was mentioned several times in the debate on these amendments. It was mentioned first by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) and then by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who is not in his place at the moment, who suggested that the Government were packing the House of Lords shamefully. For the record, let us say that 56 peers have been created since the election, of whom 29 have been Labour peers created on the proposition of the outgoing Prime Minister. If we are packing the other place, we are doing so remarkably ineffectively by inserting Labour peers.
The issue about the future of the House of Lords is an important one in the context of this Bill, as it is within the whole constitutional settlement. We are committed not only to an elected second Chamber but to a smaller second Chamber. It is precisely that work that is now being taken on in earnest for the first time in 100 years. The previous Liberal Government said very clearly in the preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 that they wished to see an elected House of Lords. That has been taken on by the Deputy Prime Minister with the all-party talks and we expect to introduce legislation early next year to bring that into effect.
Mr Heath
Because this is a Bill about the House of Commons. The House of Lords will be dealt with in different legislation, which the hon. Gentleman will see in due course. His right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) is involved in the discussions. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait. One of the lessons that we should have learned by now is that if we wait for every constitutional change to be made at once, nothing happens. That is what has prevailed for the last 100 years. We are going to change that.
The arguments that I hear about the future of the House of Lords have been strangely echoed in the arguments I heard this evening about this place. An argument that is regularly heard in the House of Lords is that any system that managed to appoint a peer as fine as the person who is speaking must be an exceedingly good system that does not require further change. We heard a bit of that this evening. We heard that any system that elected the current Members of the House must be an exceedingly good system and does not need to be changed. Various hon. Members explained how the numbers that precisely apply to their constituency are evidently the right numbers and should not be changed.
We have had the NIMPO—not in my period of office—argument, with Members saying, “Of course, we all want to see the House brought to a smaller size, but not while I’m still here. Wait until I’ve retired and then you can do it.”
We have also had the impossibility argument, with Members saying, “It is quite impossible to reduce the House from 650 to 600 Members because the electoral quota that would be in place, with 76,000 electors, would make it quite impossible for Members to do their work”, completely ignoring the fact that one third of current Members have constituencies of 76,000, or within a margin of 5% of that. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) said that it is impossible because there would not be enough time to do all the jobs that a Member of Parliament has to do. I would be more persuaded by that argument if I felt sure that every Member was a full-time Member of Parliament and did not find other employment—some excessively so. Such Members have contributed to the debate. Apparently, the shift from a constituency of 60,000 to 76,000 would make the job impossible.
We heard from the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) that the job is impossible to do if one represents a constituency that crosses a local authority boundary, but how many Members have constituencies that do that? Apparently, it would be impossible under the quota that we are suggesting.
Mr Love
The hon. Gentleman is criticising the arguments that have been used by the Opposition, so may I address the arguments that the coalition Government have used? I have read the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s report on the Bill. Having considered every argument that had been made, the Committee, which has an in-built coalition majority, concluded:
“There may be a case for reducing the number of Members of the House to 600, but the Government has not made it.”
Can the hon. Gentleman make such a case tonight?
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman will have to wait until I get to that point in my remarks, because I have a few other comments to make on what others have said in the debate.
We have heard not only that it would be impossible for Members to accommodate extraordinary constituencies of 76,000, despite the fact that so many of us do it, but that it would be impossible for electors in such constituencies to know who their MP was. We have heard that it would be impossible to have a career structure because anyone who had experience outside the House could not be elected if we had constituencies of 76,000. What an extraordinary proposition that is.
The final proposition was that this is all a partisan move—[Hon. Members: “It is!”] The Opposition say that it is a partisan move to reduce the number of Labour MPs, but we have also heard from the same side in the same argument that it will not reduce the number of Labour MPs. So, we are gerrymanderers, but we are totally incompetent gerrymanderers because we are reducing our own seats and improving the position for the Opposition.
Again, I find it extraordinary that people whom I believed were reasonably intelligent and reasonably numerate can imagine that reducing the size of the House from 650 to 600 means that the 50 smallest seats are the only ones that disappear—they just go puff and disappear into the ether—and that all the rest carry on as they were. The suggestion is that the fact that most of the smaller seats are Labour seats shows that this is a partisan move against the Labour party. I am sorry; I just do not accept that. I do not think that it is a logical argument.
Phil Wilson
In a debate last night, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) proved to me that this is a partisan move, when she said that some hon. Members oppose it because they are
“trying to avoid being turkeys voting for Christmas.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 908.]
That is what the Conservative party is saying.
Mr Heath
I am addressing the arguments made in the Chamber tonight that suggested that the reduction from 650 to 600 was an unimaginably ambitious target for the House and would result in the loss of Labour seats and was therefore a partisan move, rather than being what it is: a modest reduction in the size of the House. We have discussed other sizes of the House. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos proposed a reduction in the size of the House of Commons. The Conservative manifesto suggested the figure of 585, and the Liberal Democrats suggested 500, but on the basis of the single transferable vote.
I have made it absolutely plain that this is a matter of judgment. Six hundred is not a magical figure. I have never pretended that it is. It is an arbitrary figure, but it is one that results in an electoral quota of about 76,000, which is an entirely possible figure, as we have demonstrated, on the basis of the 2009 electoral register.
Mr Heath
The hon. Lady will have to be a little bit patient and not just stand there, but ask and then wait until I give way.
The country would like to see a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament in this House. We have tried to strike a balance between what is achievable and sensible in terms of the operation of Members of Parliament and what is desirable in finally turning the corner in terms of the ever-increasing size of the membership of the Chamber.
Susan Elan Jones
I am grateful to the Minister for finally giving way. He mentioned that the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative party proposed in their manifestos at the last election reductions in the number of seats. Various Conservative candidates in north Wales said, having cited Guy Fawkes among others, that people would probably think that the Guy Fawkes option was a good one, but we were then talking about a reduction of 10% of seats in Wales. When they were questioned, they said, “Yes, of course, it will be 10% of Welsh seats, because the new Conservative Government will be very rational in doing this.” How does the Minister justify talking about a reduction of, I think, 7.7% across the whole United Kingdom but a reduction of 25% in one of the component nations?
Mr Heath
I justify that very easily by the fact that Welsh constituencies are much smaller than constituencies in the rest of the country, and the Bill will equalise representation, as I thought we had established. As I keep on reminding the House, the existing position is that the hon. Member for Rhondda—I choose his constituency only because he happens to be sitting on the Opposition Front Bench—has 51,000 electors, my constituency has 82,000 electors and there is a difference of almost 30,000 between the two. That cannot be justified.
Mr Mark Field
I very much agree with everything that the Minister says about the equalisation of constituencies. Can he therefore justify why any exceptions are being made?
Mr Heath
Yes, I can. I can justify why the islands of northern Scotland are in a rather different position from the Cities of London and Westminster. I can explain why constituencies where, as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) says of his, the distance from one end to the other is greater than the whole of Wales might be justifiably treated as an exception. I do not find that a difficult case to make.
Mr Reid
The Deputy Leader of the House has supported the Government line that a constituency with 22,000 electors and three islands is treated as an exception. Argyll and Bute has 13 islands with a public ferry service, and covers a land area of about 5,000 square kilometres, with an electorate of 67,000. If the benchmark is three islands and 22,000 electors, why is there not an exception for other constituencies with islands—13 islands?
Mr Heath
I understand my hon. Friend’s point, because his constituency is indeed a very difficult case, and the argument that he will make to the Boundary Commission in order to maintain as much as possible of his current constituency boundary will be a very strong one. I am sure that he will make that argument, but we have not moved on to the group of amendments in which we can discuss that issue, and I have to keep in order.
May I return to the basic principle? I am amazed, because there is an element of the Bourbons about some Members: they remember nothing of what has happened over the past year or so. Do they not realise that the public are desperate for us to reduce the costs of this place? Do they not understand that there is no public clamour for more Members, which would be the effect of the amendment in the next group in the name of the hon. Member for Rhondda? The public do not want more Members, they want fewer, and I believe that our proposal in this part of the Bill is entirely appropriate.
Mr Andrew Turner
I do not understand why it is necessary for the Minister, who wants to reduce the number of Members, to create more for my seat.
Mr Heath
It is difficult to maintain a process based on the equalisation of seats, and then to sustain the case that an island, which I accept has very particular characteristics of its own and is very large, but which, unlike Orkney and Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an Iar, is within near reach of mainland Britain, should be treated as an exception. However, the hon. Gentleman will continue to make that case, and I understand exactly why he wishes to do so. I know that he speaks for many of his constituents, although not all, and I am sure that he accepts that some of his constituents feel very strongly that the Isle of Wight has natural economic links with areas of mainland Hampshire, and that a parliamentary linkage could be of benefit. But of course, he represents 100,000 electors, and does so very well—
Mr Heath
I am addressing the Chair, and the Chair is seated at the Table, not on the Opposition Benches.
As I say, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) needs to continue to press his case. We shall listen to the arguments that he makes, but we shall also try to maintain the principle of a common—[Interruption]
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. If hon. Members can be quieter, the entire Committee will be able to hear what Mr Heath is saying, so please calm down. We have only another 11 minutes left, as hon. Members know, before we need to move on.
Mr Heath
May I deal with the issues raised by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers)? He has a great deal of expertise on this issue, and I am grateful to him for contributing to the debate. He proposed giving the boundary commissions flexibility to vary the number of seats assigned to each of the four nations by a small amount. The flexibility proposed in his amendment 228—a margin of 2% on either side of the proportionate entitlement—would not work for Wales or Northern Ireland, as was recognised by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). It would not allow the commissions there to increase or reduce those nations’ allocations, as 2% of their national entitlement would not equal one whole seat.
However, there are more fundamental objections to the amendment. It would enable the Boundary Commissions for England and for Scotland to increase or decrease the total number of MPs in the House and the proportion of MPs who represent their part of the UK. Parliament should lay down clear rules for determining the number of constituencies, and they should be allocated to the four parts of the UK in proportion to their electorate. We are seeking equality between the nations as well as within them.
Finally, I want to deal with the amendments tabled—although not spoken to, obviously, because of his absence—by the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. They would require the Boundary Commissions to decide between themselves the size of the House at each review, until the figure of 600 was reached in 19 years’ time.
Mark Durkan
The Deputy Leader of the House told us that the figure of 600 was arbitrary. He has still not explained why an arbitrary figure has to be fixed in statute in perpetuity. If this is about creating equality between the component parts of the UK, why does the Bill say that constituencies in Northern Ireland can vary more widely, both among themselves and in comparison with constituencies elsewhere, than those anywhere else? That does not achieve what he says the Bill is supposed to achieve.
Mr Heath
We will have to differ on that specific point. I believe that what is proposed provides for a high level of equalisation across the whole United Kingdom. It is based on what is equitable for our constituents.
I return to the point about an incremental reduction, which was raised by one other hon. Member. I should like to make it clear that the issue was considered in the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and the secretary of the Boundary Commission for England reported that there would be no particular advantage to making the change incrementally. The commission also said that it had both the resources to carry out the review and sufficient time, before the deadline for submitting reports on 1 October 2013, to draw up constituencies for a House of 600 at the review. The suggestion that that is impossible to achieve in the time scale that we propose is not substantiated.
The Government’s proposals strike the right balance. They will end once and for all the fluctuation in the size of the House and the upward pressure on the number of MPs under the current legislation, and propose a modest reduction in overall numbers, which will cut the cost of politics, but do so in a way that will not result in constituencies that represent a departure from the type that we see in this Parliament. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will feel able to withdraw their amendments and support the Government’s position.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Mr Evans, thank you so much for calling me. It has been enlightening, educational and a real honour to listen to this debate since we last divided the House some hours ago. I have listened to some fine speeches. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) put his case with such pith and moment that I was almost persuaded to vote against my own side. The spectre that arose before us was one so terrifying and so fearful that we quaked in our Tory boots; it was the spectre of clause 9 leading us to proportional representation. The fear that came upon me was that as a result of setting a number so precise and clear that it could not be questioned even by the great and good of the Boundary Commission, we could face proportional representation. I saw other right hon. and hon. Members struck with fear at the thought, and I saw them feeling that they would move towards supporting greater flexibility.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) offered us an amendment that would meet almost every objective of Her Majesty’s Government but would still have flexibility—that great aspect of the British constitution, which has served us well since Alfred the Great, who was a Somerset man. I debate with my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) whether Alfred is more my constituent or his; I think, in fairness, that he would belong more to the Deputy Leader of the House. This constitutional flexibility is something that has been of great benefit to us. I feel that my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes got it right in saying that it is useful for there to be some degree to which one can go outside the boundaries, without being too prescriptive.
On the subject of today’s speeches, what a fantastic history lesson we had from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt). To think that this was supposedly the least discussed reform of Parliament since the Rump Parliament, when Cromwell decided to send in the troops—the only man to send troops into the predecessor building to this House to enforce debate and Divisions. Some of us may think that the Whips are tough, aggressive and forceful, but even in my experience they have not used force, or pikes, to make sure that I go in the right direction. Oliver Cromwell did indeed do that; he prevented people from voting in that forceful way. The shadow Minister returned us to these matters again and again, and spoke for at least 50 glorious minutes—minutes that felt to me like days, but days of such pleasure, joy and rejoicing in spirit that I hope we will have another 50 minutes from him in due course, or on another occasion, or perhaps tomorrow, if we should be so lucky.
Let us return to the specifics of numbers. Should it be 650, or perhaps 649? Should it be 648 or 647?
Points of Order
David Heath Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Before I respond to the hon. Gentleman, I think the House will want to hear from the Deputy Leader of the House.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I am most grateful to you for letting me respond. It was entirely regrettable that we did not reach what was an important group of amendments last night. Clearly, the House wanted sufficient time to take a view on the matter, which was why the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), quite properly indicated that he would put the amendment before the House to give Members the opportunity to take a view on it. In the end, they decided not to take a view; there was no one in support of the amendment. However, having taken account of yesterday’s events, and given the important matters that we have to debate today, may I draw the House’s attention to the programme motion that we will shortly be taking a view on? It will take away any knives this evening, which means that if we do not complete clause 9 this evening, we will be able to continue discussion tomorrow. That seems to me an entirely appropriate course of action.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the Deputy Leader of the House for what he said. I am trying to wrap it up, but of course we must hear from Chris Bryant.
Summer Adjournment
David Heath Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I congratulate the three maiden speakers, the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and my hon. Friends the Members for Livingston (Graeme Morrice) and for Hyndburn (Graham Jones). However, I should point out to the hon. Member for Witham that when Napoleon said that Britain was a nation of shopkeepers, he did not mean it strictly as a compliment.
I was very pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston mentioned Robin Cook. I remember, when I was in this place before, hearing Robin Cook’s speech when he resigned from the Government. He held the House of Commons in the palm of his hand. I have rarely seen someone make such a powerful speech. Shortly after that, 139 Labour MPs went into the Opposition Lobby and voted against the Iraq war. The suggestion that we are now hearing from the Liberal Democrats that theirs was the only party that opposed the war as a matter of principle is absolutely untrue.
As a matter of fact, I remember occasions on which we went into that Lobby—maybe 30 or 40 of us from the Benches on the Government side of the House—and the Liberal Democrats stayed here, sitting on their hands, because at that point it was not entirely clear in which direction public opinion was going. Only when public opinion was clearly swinging against the war did the Liberal Democrats decide to vote with us in the Opposition Lobby.
John Cryer
No, it is not. That is the right way round.
It is five years since I took part in a pre-recess Adjournment debate. Such debates have become something of an institution. It is a sort of whingeing gits day, enabling us to get a few things off our chests. I am pleased to note that a number of speeches, particularly from Members on the Government Benches, have followed that tradition.
I want to begin by raising an issue which I hope concerns us all, namely unemployment. You might be right-wing, you might may be left-wing, you might be a Liberal—you would be a prat, but you might be a Liberal—but I hope that the issue of joblessness concerns Members on both sides of the House.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
It is a great honour to make a few points in the summer Adjournment debate. I begin by suggesting to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that perhaps there should be a small redistribution of wealth from the BBC to ITV. We should remember that it also does a good job.
Let me move quickly on to the subject of South West Water charges. In my constituency—in my view, it is as beautiful as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston)—the charges are significantly higher, because we have 30% of the beaches and only 3% of the population to pay the extra charges. I should like the Government to consider some form of national levy requiring people from all over the country to pay for the beaches that they come to enjoy. We welcome them when they come to enjoy those beaches, but we do not think that the retired people of the South West Water area should pay the extra charges. It would mean bills in the South West Water area falling by about £65 to £75, yet the national levy would be in the region of £1.50. I ask the Government to look at this sympathetically.
On Tiverton high school, let me first say that I understand that the coalition Government have of course had to cut back on the Building Schools for the Future programme because there was no money left. We know that that is the case, and I shall not repeat it too often. We need to be sure that we can build schools in the future, and that the money we put into capital spending actually goes into building schools and not on administration, as 20% to 30% did under BSF. I ask Ministers that when money becomes available, Tiverton high school is not forgotten, because that would be good not only for the high school, but for a part of Tiverton that needs regeneration.
I want now to talk about the A303/A30.
Neil Parish
I thought the Deputy Leader of the House might say that as the A303 also runs through his constituency. In Cornwall, we have trunked the whole A303—or A30 as it is down there. That is excellent of course, but by the time many people get to Cornwall they will have passed through Wiltshire, Somerset and Devon. We have to make sure that we trunk the road through Somerset into Devon, and around Honiton in particular, where there is a bad bottleneck. When people get to Honiton, they can link into the dual carriageway that takes them on to Exeter and beyond. It would be great if we could get this done. In 1997, the road was all ready to be built, but then—lo and behold—we got a Labour Government who immediately stopped it. As the plans are all ready, we could go ahead and build this straight away if we had the money.
My constituency has the two hospitals of Tiverton and Honiton, and we have maternity units in both of them. Prior to the election, services were cut in Honiton and they have been stopped in Tiverton. I want to ensure that those maternity services are reintroduced, because it is absolutely right that we not only have midwives to help with home births, but that mothers can choose to give birth in hospital as well. I therefore make that great plea.
I want there to be more competition with BT in the rolling out of broadband into rural areas. At present BT is dictating the speed at which it is being rolled out, and it is currently not being rolled out at all across many rural areas. I welcome the coalition Government’s commitment to helping communities roll out broadband.
The need to take decisive action on tuberculosis in cattle is an issue dear to the hearts of many of us in rural areas. We spend more than £100 million a year on taking out diseased cattle, yet we are not tackling the disease in wildlife. I welcome the commitment of the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ensure that we look at ways in which we can cull infected badgers so that cattle are not re-infected.
My final point is about Zimbabwe, which is, I accept, a long way from my constituency, but many of my constituents come from that country and I was an election observer there in 2000. Zimbabwe is still staggering on, and I hope our coalition Government prove to be more effective than the current coalition Government in that country. I plead with the Government to look in future at helping Zimbabwe to have a proper audit of the farms and farmland there. Zimbabwe could feed both itself and quite a lot of Africa, but at present it cannot even feed itself because that land is not being farmed and not being looked after. The ownership of these farms is now often not for the sake of farming the land, but just for the sake of having property, and that should be investigated.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
I want to start where the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) finished, just in case I do not get the chance to say this later. I really want to send all those who work in the House my very best wishes and pay tribute to the way in which they keep this place running. They include the staff of Hansard, the Library and the Tea Room, the cleaners, the Clerks, the police, the Serjeant at Arms and her team, and the Doorkeepers. I particularly want to join the authors of early-day motion 596 in paying tribute to George Blaylock, Clive Burrows, Ken Jones and Clive Thomas, who, after a combined 73 years of service, are retiring as Doorkeepers. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I hope that all hon. Members appreciate how much we owe to the staff of this House and the way in which they carry out their duties.
There is not time to do justice to all the excellent speeches that we have heard this afternoon. The Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), made the very good suggestion that we should find a mechanism whereby everything that is said in these debates receives a proper response from Ministers. I will do my best to ensure that that happens on this occasion. Certainly, I shall ensure that any points to which I do not respond go to the appropriate Department. Her request was backed up by the hon. Members for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and for Battersea (Jane Ellison).
I congratulate the three hon. Members who made their maiden speeches today. We had a surfeit of very competent speeches, and I am delighted that the standard of speeches has been maintained by all those who have entered the House this time round. The speeches covered an enormous amount of territory. We went from the Clash with the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) to the jam with my the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel). The hon. Member for Livingston (Graeme Morrice) did something that I always appreciate—namely, he put a few of his more difficult-sounding villages into the middle of his speech. I always do that, because it keeps the officers of Hansard happy. Kingsbury Episcopi! I just throw that in for no reason at all.
On the substance of the debate, there were groups of subjects, and they included schools, which featured prominently. Some hon. Members paid tribute to schools in their constituencies. They included the hon. Members for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and for Harrow West (Mr Thomas). Several hon. Members were concerned about school buildings and the fact that they had fallen foul of the cancellation of Building Schools for the Future. That point was raised by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner). Whenever he talks about the mining interests in his constituency, he reminds me of the coal mining area of my constituency, where the pits closed a little earlier than in his.
I appreciate the need to replace our crumbling schools, and I wish that we had had a programme that was capable of being delivered. However, in the case of those schools that deserve replacement, I hope that hon. Members will persevere, and that they will push, push and push again for those schools to be included in future programmes. I know that the Secretary of State for Education and the Minister with responsibility for schools, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) will listen to those propositions. I hope that Ministers will meet the hon. Member for Bolsover about Tibshelf school. I hope that they will also meet the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer), my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) and the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish).
I think that the hon. Members for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana R. Johnson) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) were talking about schools that were not part of the Building Schools for the Future programme. One of the criticisms of that programme was that it did not extend to primary schools, infant schools or nursery schools, and perhaps that is something that we need to do in the future.
Another sub-theme related to trains. The hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen talked about the need for a Rossendale to Manchester link. He was supported in that by the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling). The hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) talked about the deficiencies in provision in his constituency, and he mentioned National Express. The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) mentioned the famous station at Carnforth, and my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) talked about the slightly less famous station at Melksham. I am nevertheless familiar with that station, and with the need for First Great Western to do a better job. I hope that we will be able to make progress on what is essentially the railway companies providing a better service. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), who is very much engaged with these issues, will take those matters forward.
Another sub-theme was health. I will forgive the hon. Member for Islington North for calling me “hapless”; I think I have quite a lot of hap, although he feels otherwise. He spoke about the Whittington hospital, and I know how important it is. He argued for local decisions on hospitals and against centralisation. The hon. Member for Bolton North East (Mr Crausby) said that he did not want local decisions on hospitals, but centralisation and a big supercentre. They cannot both be right, but the most important thing is that local provision is what is necessary to provide a good health service in the local area. The points raised will continue to be debated.
The hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) did a side advertisement for the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru, offered birthday wishes to his constituent, and also talked about alcohol pricing. How we reduce binge drinking is something that we will have to address as a public health issue. I think that the Department is very seized of the importance of that.
The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton spoke about the two hospitals in his constituency and wants to see a return to the provision of maternity services, while the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) raised the issue of his constituent who needed a cancer drug. I am sure he will be pleased that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has announced today that from October an extra £50 million will be available to help patients get access to innovative new cancer drugs. Doctors will be put in charge of deciding how the funding is spent for their patients locally, based on the advice of cancer specialists.
I thought there would be a sub-group based on courts when the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) talked about Sittingbourne court. I could join this group, as I am facing the proposed closure of Frome magistrates court. There is a consultation exercise and we will all put our views forcefully to the Ministry of Justice. Decisions will be based on access to justice criteria, which is very important. I hope that he will make his case on that basis.
We now come to a group that I have headed simply as “denial”. This includes the hon. Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for Bolton West, for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), for Leyton and Wanstead, for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) and for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), who would simply not accept the mess that their Government—the Labour Government—had left. The key phrase came from the hon. Member for Bolton West who said that the choices that are being taken now are not the choices they would have made. Well, we would have loved to have known what choices they would have made, because they were committed to £40 billion-worth of cuts and 500,000 job losses in the public sector. Come on, let us hear what they were!
Let me try to deal with all the rest in the three minutes remaining. The hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) ranged from fishing smacks under 10 metres in Leigh-on-Sea to myalgic encephalomyelitis and his constituents Julie Ditchburn and Tinashe Sahanga, Southend airport, clamping and policing. I will make sure that various Departments will get to hear what he had to say.
The hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) raised what sounds like a very important case of the Financial Services Authority failing in its regulatory function in respect of her constituents. The hon. Member for South Staffordshire mentioned Traveller sites and is presenting a petition. He will be pleased that the decentralisation Bill is coming forward in mid-November to give extra powers to local authorities.
The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) raised competitive sports and I absolutely agree with him, while my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham talked about his constituent in Avoncliff and the attitude of the Environment Agency. He and I share a lot of experience on this issue of micro-hydro power generation and the attitude of the Environment Agency. It is an issue that we must get to the bottom of.
The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) talked about the law-making powers for the National Assembly of Wales, while the hon. Member for Portsmouth South spoke about houses in multiple occupation and the difficulties of council tax and business rates. I hope that the Department will look at those issues.
The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) talked about the Mottram-to-Tintwistle bypass and wanted a meeting with a Minister. I think he threatened civil disobedience if he did not get it, so we had perhaps better arrange it. I hope that the relevant Minister will explain why the public inquiry was so mishandled under the last Government.
The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale talked about the conservation of the conservation of the coastline, while the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) told us that all civil servants are not fat cats—and she is absolutely right; it is an important point that needs to be made. The hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) talked about Kashmir, while the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) talked about the Hope Cove lifeboat. She raised a crucial issue; she wants to know when a Minister will visit and asked about the freedom of information request. I will make sure that her specific questions are answered.
I have no time to respond to any more questions, but I will ensure that hon. Members do get replies to the points that they raised. May I wish you, Mr Speaker, and all staff a very happy recess.