Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

David Linden Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 1st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

As a new Member of the House, this is the first time I have taken part in a private Member’s Bill Friday. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) is suggesting that I take the full three hours available, but I will not do so, having sat through the last almost three hours with some Members waffling on for the best part of 50 minutes. If we were to talk about the current state of politics, I might start—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South is right: the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who spoke for 50 minutes, has left the Chamber. Perhaps he is away talking to himself in the mirror.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) on bringing forward the Bill. It is notable that he has had a meteoric rise as part of the class of 2017. He has been fortunate in the ballot for private Members’ Bills, and he is now on the shadow Front Bench. That is almost as meteoric as my rise to the position of deputy assistant junior Whip for the Scottish National party. I do not intend to speak for very long, but I want to say that we in the SNP believe that the UK Government should abandon their plan to cut the number of MPs, particularly in Scotland, where the proposal to cut 10% of Members is absolutely unacceptable. I want to take a few minutes to talk about the other place along the corridor—the “ermine vermin”. Also, we need to think not necessarily about cutting the cost of politics but about the Government’s proposal to cut the cost of scrutiny. I also want to talk about EU scrutiny and about the proposed unfeasibly large seats. I will finish by referencing some of the provisions in the Bill.

We are in the rather bizarre position of having a House of Lords with more than 800 Members. I believe that it is second in size only to China’s National People’s Congress, which is absolutely ridiculous. It is the only legislature other than that of Iran in which members of the clergy are allowed to legislate: it has 24 bishops, temporal and spiritual. Other than Lesotho, it is the only legislature that has hereditary chieftains, in the form of its 92 hereditary peers. That makes an absolute mockery of the place. Even more scandalous is the fact that Members of the House of Lords clock in, get their tax-free £300 a day, and then leave. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) is looking at ways of tracking how often they are actually in the building. There has certainly been evidence in the past that they turn up and then leave again within a few minutes, which is totally unacceptable. Also, if the proposed changes went through, we would find ourselves in the bizarre situation of having more Members of the House of peers with a Scottish address than elected Members of Parliament for Scotland.

Under the leadership of David Cameron, the Government appointed 126 Conservative Members of the House of Lords, 56 Labour Members, 51 Liberal Democrats and 31 independent and Cross-Bench peers. Conservative Members in this place spend a huge amount of time telling us about cutting the cost of politics, yet they are quite happy to condone appointments such as those. I do not see anyone trying to intervene on me at this stage, so perhaps they understand that this is a pretty daft situation.

[Oliver Dowden]

As the hon. Gentleman is seeking an intervention, perhaps he would like to note that the cost of the House of Lords has actually fallen, not risen, since 2010, so the cost of politics is being cut in relation to the upper Chamber.

[David Linden]

The point is that if we continue on the current trajectory of appointing Lords, we will have more than 1,000 Members in the other place, so I think that that falls on its feet.

I also want to touch on the question of EU scrutiny. As we leave the European Union, we are going to lose 73 Members of the European Parliament. That will mean a lot of EU legislation coming back to London. I hope the Government will resist the temptation to execute a power grab, and instead put those powers on to Edinburgh and Wales. Under the Government’s proposals, however, there would be fewer MPs to scrutinise all that legislation. During the referendum campaign, I remember leavers telling us that 75% of our legislation was made in Brussels. If all that legislation is coming back to this place, we will need to scrutinise it, yet there will be fewer Members of Parliament to do so. That makes a mockery of the argument that we are taking back control. Where is the parliamentary sovereignty there? Hon. Members have already touched on the question of the payroll vote. The combined number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries and Ministers accounts for 22% of this legislature, but I see no proposals from the Government to reduce their numbers.

I also want to talk about the proposals for some unfeasibly large seats following the boundary changes. My group leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) already has seven islands in his constituency. Bizarrely, the proposed new seat of Argyll, Bute and Lochaber would have 30 inhabited islands. I was speaking to the current member for Argyll and Bute, my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara), yesterday. He told me that if he turned left from his house and went towards Glasgow airport, he could get to Canada more quickly than he could get to Canna in the proposed new constituency. That is ludicrous. The proposed new Highland South constituency would be the size of Cyprus. I do not know whether parliamentary allowances would allow a new Member to have a helicopter to get around that constituency, which would be five times the size of Luxembourg. Charles Kennedy, who sadly passed away, said that

“having represented three such vast constituencies over the course of nearly 30 years now, I can say that the current one is by far the most impractical. It has to be said that the other two were gigantic and posed particular problems, but there comes a point at which geographical impracticality sets in and nobody can do the job of local parliamentary representation effectively.”—[Official Report, 1 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 661.]

Charles Kennedy was a very wise man, and I think we should listen to that.

I do not want to filibuster on this Bill, as some Government Members may have done, so I will finish up by making reference to its provisions. We certainly welcome the relaxation of requirements so that the electorate per constituency has to be to within 7.5% of the electoral quota to preserve local representation. However, I am concerned that the Bill contains a provision for a fixed number of MPs for Northern Ireland but not for Scotland, so I hope that the Bill will have its Second Reading today and will be taken into Committee, where I will be seeking an amendment to remedy that.

I hope that Government Members do not reject this Bill’s Second Reading, and I commend the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton for bringing the Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

And indeed London. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) is not in his place, but he will of course know that Henry VII, the earl of the original Richmond in Yorkshire, was so taken with the place that he decided to rename that part of London called Sheen and build a palace there in honour of the Richmond in Yorkshire—but we digress.

Even with these reforms, the point remains that our constituencies will still be much smaller than those of comparable parliamentary democracies. I acknowledge that an increase in our electorates will mean an increase in our postbags and inboxes, and that with no obvious change in our office resources to match, we will all have to work that much harder to represent our constituents. We talk a lot in this House about productivity, so it is only right that we as Members do our bit to drive up the UK’s productivity. Similarly, as we have heard, when public money is tight it is eminently reasonable that politics should not be immune from our efforts to bring the nation’s finances back under control.

[David Linden]

It is a bit ironic that the hon. Gentleman is talking about how the public purse is under huge strain; I look at the Benches where the Democratic Unionist party would be. Does not what the Government did by bribing the DUP with £1 billion in the confidence and supply agreement relate to exactly that point?

[Rishi Sunak]

On representation, I feel pretty good that the Conservative Benches are lined with colleagues participating today, unlike the Opposition Benches. The hon. Gentleman talks a lot about money for the DUP, but that is deeply insulting to the people of Northern Ireland, who are receiving any money that the UK Government are spending on regions—Scotland, Wales and Yorkshire also receive funding. When we talk about money going to the regions from this Parliament, it is going to the people of those areas, not their politicians.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden) defended well how this measure will cut the cost of politics, and we would do well to heed that. Of course we do not want to see any weakening of that fundamental link between MPs and their constituents, but I do not think that increasing the size of constituencies by 10%, as the original 2011 Act does, will in any way undermine that strong connection we have today.

Thirdly, I should say that this is not just about the number of constituencies, but about where we draw the lines, so the last point I wish to make is about how the boundary review affects my constituency. Constituency boundaries must reflect the way people live their lives. Ordnance Survey maps, detailed as they are, cannot always capture the close bonds of community that have been forged between towns and villages over centuries. The village of Great Ayton, the boyhood home of Captain Cook, has been an integral part of my constituency for more than a century, taking part in the election of Richmond’s MPs in as many as 27 general elections in that time. So it is not difficult to imagine the shock of local people when the Boundary Commission originally recommended that they be transferred to the neighbouring constituency of Thirsk and Malton. In no way was that a reflection on the excellent work that my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton does; it was more about the surprise that they would be pulled out of the Richmond constituency and pushed into another, separated from them by the vast expanse of the North Yorkshire moors.

On any level, local people were puzzled by the decision. The local secondary school for children in Great Ayton is based in Stokesley, which would remain in the Richmond constituency, as would the GP services they use. The transport link—the A172, which links Great Ayton with Northallerton, our county town, which contains the businesses and travel links that everyone uses—also stays in the Richmond constituency. Any way one looked at it—from the point of view of transport, education, health, business and history—pointed to the fact that Great Ayton belonged with its cousins in Richmond.

On a personal note, I of course did not want to stop being the Member of Parliament for a community for which I have a great deal of affection, and I was struck by the number of constituents who wrote to me to express their concern. It is no wonder that the Boundary Commission noted that it had received significant opposition to its proposals. Along with broad cross-party agreement that those proposals were flawed, the commission was inundated with submissions and public meetings were packed with people coming to express their point of view.

I was delighted when the Boundary Commission accepted the case that retaining Great Ayton was compelling. The wonderful part of the country that I have the privilege to represent will remain intact. For me, this was a positive experience of the Boundary Commission doing its job diligently and constructively. It listened, engaged and did its utmost to accommodate a community’s wishes and I remain grateful to it.

I remain in support of the original 2011 Act. Constituencies with an equal number of electors are a fundamental democratic principle and a reform long overdue. Reducing the number of MPs will cut the cost of politics without endangering the critical scrutiny or constituency link that Parliament provides. Lastly, in making the changes, we should be mindful of the individual character of constituencies and encourage the Boundary Commission to listen and adjust its proposals when they do not match the reality on the ground. We are fortunate to have the electoral system that we do, and I am sure that it will continue to serve us well for generations to come.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (First sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton for his remarks about his Bill. We all recognise that the review is much needed. It presents an opportunity for cross-party agreement on new boundaries.

I share my hon. Friend’s disappointment that a money resolution has not been forthcoming from the Government, because in December this House sent a strong message that we wanted the Bill to be considered in Committee. It passed its Second Reading by 229 votes to 44. I am sure that the Government would not want there to be a perception that not providing for a money resolution might be an attempt to sabotage a private Member’s Bill and, after all, the will of the House. They would not want it to be presented as an attempt to seek political advantage.

It is widely accepted that the boundary review in its current form would be a disaster for our democracy for various reasons, the most important of which would be the cutting of the number of MPs without a reduction in the number of Ministers. That would only increase the power of the Executive and make it more difficult for Back Benchers such as my hon. Friend to challenge the Government. However, as we have seen, there is no money resolution, and that sends a dangerous message. It concerns the respect that should be accorded to Back Benchers who have had success in the private Member’s Bill ballot, and their ability to bring forward measures for us to consider.

Constitutional changes should be dealt with fairly, and everyone should have a voice. Sadly, that is not happening this morning. I urge the Government to see to the matter of a money resolution at the earliest opportunity so that the Committee can get on with the vital work that we intend to do.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries.

The Scottish National party’s perspective on the Bill, in outline, is that we support it. We should like to amend it in one or two areas and, as the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton has explained, it is impossible for us to do so until the Government provide a money resolution. The Government regularly talk about Parliament taking back control. The Brexiteers in the Government talk about it. An hon. Member has now secured, through the ballot, the ability to introduce the Bill; the House voted fairly unanimously for it to go into Committee; and the Government are leaving it in political purgatory by not dealing with the money resolution.

I want to make it clear that the SNP will not accept a 10% cut in the number of Scotland’s MPs. We want to amend the Bill, but as we know, we can do that only after a money resolution. I do not want to spend endless weeks in a Committee talking shop. Parliament has spoken and it is up to the Government to respect that. If they do not, I think they will find that the consequences will be quite severe.

The situation brings us back to the fundamental point that Westminster is a place of limited democracy, which is exactly what the Government’s behaviour shows. That state of affairs should end immediately. There should be a money resolution, and we should get on with the job.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)]

It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I will make an extremely brief contribution to this morning’s debate, and say simply that the Boundary Commission for England began the 2018 parliamentary boundary review in 2016. It is due to report its final recommendations later this year. The Government were elected on a manifesto commitment to continue with the boundary review and it would not, therefore, be appropriate to proceed with the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton at this time by providing it with a money resolution. The Government will keep the Bill under review, but we believe that it is right that the Boundary Commission be allowed to report its recommendations before careful consideration is given to how to proceed.

Question put and agreed to.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Third sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 16th May 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Afzal Khan]

I beg to move, That the Committee do now adjourn.

I thank everyone for gathering here again. I will not make the same speech that I have already made twice. Despite my ongoing efforts since the last time we met, there is still no sign of a money resolution. The Government are making a mockery of the private Member’s Bill process, pursuing electoral interests over the interests of democracy.

The Procedure Committee has carried out a number of inquiries into the private Member’s Bill process and has consistently argued that the current system is insufficiently transparent, and that it is too easy for a small number of MPs or the Government to stop any Bills that they disagree with. This is a perfect example of such an abuse of process. I will continue to press the Government, and I propose that the Committee continues to meet on Wednesday mornings, to show that we are ready to debate and scrutinise the Bill in the open, as soon as the Government allow us to do so.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. It is of course the case that the Government have refused to table a money resolution, notwithstanding that the House gave the Bill its Second Reading and has delegated us to consider it in Committee. Previous Committee sittings have been rather short, which suggests that the Government have no interest in legislative scrutiny or in the Bill.

Given the contempt that the Government have shown towards the House, it will be helpful to remind them of some of its conventions. Members may wish to bear with me, because I intend to take some time to go through certain aspects of “Erskine May”. I hope that the Minister was not planning to leave the room in the next few minutes, because she will not be able to.

Page 535 of “Erskine May”, on proceedings on public Bills in the House of Commons, states:

“In the House of Commons, there are three ways in which a bill may be introduced…It may be brought in upon an order of the House…It may be presented without an order under the provisions of Standing Order No 57(1)…It may be brought in from the House of Lords.”

On Bills founded upon financial resolutions, it states:

“The procedure for the introduction of bills upon financial resolutions is now most commonly exemplified by Consolidated Fund Bills—”

as explained on pages 740 and 741 of “Erskine May”—

“which are founded upon Supply resolutions, and by Finance Bills and other taxing bills, which are founded upon Ways and Means resolutions.”

[The Chair]

Order. I remind the hon. Member that reading from a book is not permitted in Committee proceedings. He may summarise “Erskine May” and advise us of his counsel, but he must not read verbatim.

[David Linden]

Thank you, Mr Owen. I appreciate that clarification. I will come back to certain aspects of the rules. The substance of the Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton is to make sure that Parliament has the ability to scrutinise legislation. Obviously, we are leaving the European Union, which means that huge swathes of legislation will be coming back to the House. The idea that we should reduce the number of Members in the House who are able to scrutinise that legislation simply beggars belief. We have not seen proposals from the Government to reduce the number of Members on the payroll vote—that is, Parliamentary Private Secretaries and, indeed, Ministers. The Government are showing contempt for the House. They should seriously consider tabling a money resolution, but I do not know whether the Minister is even paying attention at the moment.

On money resolutions, there certainly is precedent for the way in which the Government have, to be frank, been taking the mickey. I do not know what kind of respect the Government are showing this House by not tabling a money resolution. We regularly talk about Parliament taking back control, the will of Parliament and parliamentary sovereignty, yet even though the House voted for this Bill to proceed to Committee stage, we are not able to discuss it.

We can continue the charade of coming to this Committee twice a week, pretending that we are taking proposed legislation seriously and scrutinising it, but that makes a mockery of this place. If the Minister plans to simply sit there and diddle away on her phone and read her papers for the coming Cabinet Office questions—if that is how she wants to treat this House—that is her prerogative. Those of us who come here to treat Parliament with respect, however, who have been sent here to represent our constituents and the will of the people, will attend this Committee week in, week out, and we can go on for as long as she likes. If the Government do not table a money resolution, I will not hesitate to come back with much longer speeches—they might not be based on “Erskine May”—until such time as they do so.

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I just want to make a couple of points. As a new Member, I feel I have much to learn. I was really pleased to hear the hon. Member for Glasgow East reading from that book, because I found it really useful. I agree with all his comments. This seems a mockery of the process. When I speak to people in my constituency and tell them that, they agree.

Finally—I have made this point a number of times—I find it quite rude when hon. Members do not listen to what others are saying and sit looking at their phones or doing their papers when we should be dealing with the business at hand.

--- Later in debate ---

[Afzal Khan]

A number of Members have made their point. The Government need to be much clearer. The will of the House is that we should debate this matter. Whatever arguments there are for the Bill, that is what needs to happen, not the withholding of a money resolution. The Minister does not wish to say anything now but maybe next week she can seek counsel from other senior Ministers and bring more clarity, so that at least we do not waste our time in coming here, and she can show some respect to Members.

[David Linden]

On a point of order, Mr Owen. This Committee has been set up by the House because a majority of hon. Members voted for it. What provisions and opportunities are available to hon. Members to put on the record that a Government Minister has come to this Committee and said absolutely nothing about a Bill that has been supported by the democratically elected House of Commons?

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Fourth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Public Bill Committees

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I apologise, Chair, for being late; I have sprained my wrist. One of the issues about the size of constituencies is that one of the proposed constituencies under the new boundary review in Scotland would be the size of Cyprus. That is not practically possible. There is a wider point here, because when we lose all our Members of the European Parliament and Parliament takes back control, we will have fewer MPs to scrutinise all this legislation. Then, when they go back to their constituencies, they will have to try to get around by helicopter, given the size of the constituencies the Government are proposing.

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. I wish him a speedy recovery with his arm, which looks very painful.

I think we are all largely in agreement that the boundary review is needed; that is not something I am arguing against. Updating boundaries is a vital part of the functioning of our electoral system. However, it has to proceed in a way that benefits our democracy and not just one political party. The political case presented by the Government for reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 600 is completely flawed. The Hansard Society found no rationale for the Government’s decision, noting that there was a “real concern” that the number had been,

“plucked from thin air—600 simply being a neat number.”

Cutting 50 MPs also presents a “crisis of scrutiny”, a concern raised by the Electoral Reform Society. The Government’s current plan, to reduce the number of MPs in Parliament without reducing the number of Ministers, will only increase the power of the Executive. That will make it more difficult for Back Benchers to challenge the Government, which in turn will reduce Parliament’s ability to hold the Government to account. As we are witnessing today, the Government fear challenge, loathe scrutiny and have no respect for Back Benchers.

The need for parliamentary scrutiny has never been greater as our nation prepares to leave the European Union. As the hon. Member for Glasgow East mentioned, to lose 50 MPs at the same time as taking back powers from Brussels risks leaving the UK Government struggling to keep up with the day-to-day requirements of legislation. In short, what seemed like a good idea in 2011 is very different in 2018, because so much has changed. As MPs’ workload looks set to rise—

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Fifth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Christian Matheson]

I am most grateful for your guidance, Mr Owen. My point is that the Minister seems to wish to seek an adjournment now and at future sittings in order to knock back, in Boycott fashion, consideration of the detail of the Bill.

I am reminded of my old mate Michael Atherton and his famous 185 not out to save the test in Johannesburg. The rest of the England batting order collapsed, but Mike managed to save the day. I say to the Minister, however, that that test was not won. Mike Atherton did not succeed in winning the test; he managed only to stave off a decision until the next match. My advice to her, therefore, is that consideration of the Bill may be delayed, but the day of reckoning will come. It would be better for her and for the Government’s reputation if they allowed us to get round to discussing the detail of the Bill, rather than giving the impression that the Bill is not worth discussing, for political reasons as opposed to anything in it.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

What a pleasure it is to be back in the political purgatory that is the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill Committee. I am disappointed that the other Chair, the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), is not here, because we could have called it, “I’m in a Public Bill Committee… Get Me Out of Here!” We seem to meet fairly regularly to consider at length the Bill, which the House passed on Second Reading, but of course is being stonewalled in Committee by the Government.

I warmly welcome the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for City of Chester. I am sure that we all wish the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood a very safe delivery of her baby. I myself—well, for reasons of biology, clearly I am not expecting a baby, but my wife is expecting one in the autumn. At this rate, I wonder whether we will have a money resolution by then. It seems bizarre that we may go for nine months before we get one. The Bill received its Second Reading last year, and since then a number of Bills that were behind this one in the queue have been expedited, in the sense of having been given money resolutions.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Sixth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Committee do now adjourn.

I thank all hon. Members for attending this Committee sitting of the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill. Once again, I must express my extreme frustration at the Government for their refusal to follow basic parliamentary procedures and bring forward a money resolution. For all the talk of concern for parliamentary sovereignty, the Government have shown profound disrespect for the parliamentary process. This is an embarrassment to the UK Government, and their refusal to provide a sensible rationale for their actions shows that their aim in this matter is clearly undemocratic.

I want to make something clear: I disagree firmly with many Conservative policies, but have absolutely no hard feelings towards the Conservative electorate or their parliamentary representatives. I know from public debates and private conversations that the Bill has support from various Conservative Members of Parliament. The Second Reading of the Bill was passed unanimously, which is clear evidence of the broadly based support for sensible electoral updates. The issue is with the Executive and the blatantly undemocratic actions that they have taken.

I wish to have those critical discussions of the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill. That should be what we are here to do. However, we cannot engage in the discussions until the Government have complied with the basic parliamentary conventions. The Bill has received a Second Reading and requires a money resolution for its further progress.

I am not sympathetic to claims of financial irresponsibility. The Bill is designed to address widely held concerns about the make-up of our parliamentary democracy. Ideally, the Bill would be unnecessary, but unfortunately the previous Boundary Commission set out instructions that do not command support from the House. That said, if the House of Commons deems that the Bill would be an improper use of funds, that would be a valid result, but the Government have refused to table a money resolution and let Members exercise their judgment, as is their duty.

I hope that the Government will respect the will of the people of the UK and respect the parliamentary process, which they claim to hold dear. I will continue to press, through every avenue available to me, for progress on this matter. I thank everyone for their attention, although I must apologise that these important sittings have become a routine drain on parliamentary time and resources. I thank everyone again for their time. I hope to see everyone next week and that we will have the opportunity to make better use of our privilege to represent the people of the UK.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

What a pleasure it is to be back for the sixth episode of “I’m in a Public Bill Committee…Get Me Out of Here!” Once again, we come here for the charade that we are here to scrutinise legislation—legislation that was passed democratically on the Floor of the House of Commons last year. I have now passed my first-year anniversary in this place, and with every week that goes by, something new comes up to present me with the idea that Westminster is a place of limited democracy. Last night, we met for a whole 19 minutes to debate and scrutinise crucial amendments about devolution. That was one minute longer than the sitting of this Committee last week, when we sat for a whole 18 minutes to scrutinise the Bill. Of course, the absolute nonsense that—

[The Chair]

Order. Please keep to the motion, Mr Linden.

[David Linden]

Absolutely, Ms Dorries; thank you for your reminder to do that. I was reminded that Parliament is taking back control by leaving the European Union and that we will have all this parliamentary sovereignty. It led me to wonder what will happen if the Bill does not pass. The number of MPs will be reduced by 50, which will mean fewer MPs to scrutinise Government legislation.

However, I also remembered that there are people in the other House who will be able to hold the Government to account. They are the Bishop of Birmingham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Carlisle, the Bishop of Chelmsford, the Bishop of Chester, the Bishop of Chichester, the Bishop of Coventry, the Bishop of Derby, the Bishop of Durham, the Bishop of Ely, the Bishop of Leeds, the Bishop of Lincoln, the Bishop of Norwich, the Bishop of Oxford, the Bishop of Peterborough, the Bishop of Portsmouth—this looks very much like a stag do with the amount of guys here—the Bishop of Rochester, the Bishop of St Albans, the Bishop of Salisbury, the Bishop of Southwark, the Bishop of Winchester, the Bishop of Worcester, the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Gloucester and the Bishop of Newcastle.

There is also Lord Agnew of Oulton, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, the Earl of Arran, Lord Ashton of Hyde, Viscount Astor, Lord Astor of Hever, Earl Attlee, Lord Baker of Dorking, Lord Balfe, Lord Bamford, Lord Barker of Battle—

[The Chair]

Order. It is not appropriate to read from a list in Committee.

[David Linden]

But these are fine legislators.

[The Chair]

Please make a substantive contribution. Reading from a list is not allowed.

[David Linden]

This is not a list. These are some of our fantastic legislators. I could read it in a different order, not necessarily from a list; I could take names at random. There is a whole 800 or 900 of them—the House of Lords is practically the size of the National People’s Congress in China.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)]

GCSE maths. This is not about—

[David Linden]

At least we have heard something from the Minister. I feel gratified that I have managed to move the Minister to say something in Committee after her coming here week after week.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Lord Bishop of Chester. Is he aware that I was with the bishop on Sunday afternoon to open to the new community centre at St Mary’s church in Handbridge in Chester?

[David Linden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Perhaps he might be able to tell us what happened that day and what the bishop said to him?

[Christian Matheson]

It was a fantastic occasion on which the community came together to dedicate the new church building, which will serve large parts of the community in Handbridge and the southern part of the city of Chester.

[David Linden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for enlightening us about that.

[The Chair]

Mr Linden, as this is now a matter of public record, could you let me know whether those names on the list you are reading from support the Bill.

[David Linden]

That is a good question. Unfortunately, as a Member of the House of Commons, I have no opportunity to scrutinise lords, because they are, of course, unelected.

[Christian Matheson]

I suggest to my good friend the hon. Gentleman that we will not know whether their lordships support the Bill until it reaches them. A great way to test that would be for the Bill to complete its passage in this place and to move on to the other place, so that their lordships can have their say.

[David Linden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that powerful intervention. He reminds us that, until such a time that the Government have the balls to bring forward a money resolution and allow the Bill to be considered clause by clause, line by line by the Committee, we will not have the opportunity to send it to our comrades in ermine along the corridor for them to scrutinise. It may well be, as the hon. Gentleman said—

[The Chair]

Order. Are you aware that the motion that we are discussing today is to adjourn?

[David Linden]

I am. I have seen that motion, I think, five times now, because I have been here for about five weeks in a row. I am very familiar with it.

[The Chair]

Then perhaps you could explain why you are giving the speech that you are, because it is not to the motion.

[David Linden]

Because the motion itself, and the proceedings of the Committee, are an absolute charade.

[Christian Matheson]

What a great pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I will again make the announcement that I made to the Committee last week, which is that I have taken the place of my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), who I am very pleased to say is on maternity leave. I am sure that Committee members continue to send her and her husband all the best.

I will not make such a long speech as my good friend the hon. Member for Glasgow East, but I express my regret that we are in the same position as we have been in for the last five weeks. I have not, of course; I am only a fairly new addition to the Committee so I have not had to go through the proceedings and processes quite as tortuously, but it is a matter of regret that we are not able to debate the Bill in detail, because the Government still refuse to bring forward a money resolution. Indeed, there seems to be a distinct lack of interest on the Government Benches in the Committee. However, it is good to see the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean in his place. I understand he has been an assiduous attender, and I respect that. It is good to see him here taking the Bill seriously.

I do not want to detain the Committee too long on a fruitless exercise. I simply want to ask the Minister whether she will take back—or has already taken back—to ministerial colleagues a sense of Members’ frustration at the lack of progress. Will she explain that after a clear decision on Second Reading there is, certainly among the Opposition, anxiety, disappointment and—dare I say it—something approaching anger? There is a sense of a certain contempt in the way the Bill is not being dealt with.

I respect the Minister for taking one for the team in this respect: she has to go through the process, and this is not about the hon. Lady herself. She is very well thought of. It is about the Government as a whole not taking their responsibility to the House seriously. I ask the Minister to take back to her colleagues the idea that they cannot keep kicking the matter into the long grass forever, and that at some point the Bill will have to be debated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

It is about making a decision. The Government have made a decision that it is sensible to allow the boundary commissions to complete a review, which they have almost done, at considerable public expense. They have consulted not just Members of Parliament and political parties but thousands of members of the public, who have looked at the initial drafts. They listened, responded to that and have made amendments. The Government wish that process, which has taken place at considerable public expense, to conclude before they reflect on whether it is sensible to proceed with the hon. Gentleman’s Bill.

That is a perfectly sensible decision. I accept that he and his hon. Friends do not agree with that, but it is perfectly rational and defensible. That is why we have the motion to adjourn before us, and I think we will have such motions for considerable weeks until the boundary commissions have had a chance to report. It is a perfectly sensible decision, set out clearly by the Minister at earlier stages of the Committee.

[David Linden]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Harper]

No, I will conclude my remarks. Thank you for your indulgence, Ms Dorries.

Question put and agreed to.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Seventh sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I want to put a few remarks on the record on the motion to adjourn because things have changed a little bit from the last time the Committee met. On previous occasions, the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton has referred to the decision the House took to pass his Bill on Second Reading. This is and remains entirely true.

The difference today is that the House was explicitly asked a question yesterday about the proceedings in this Committee. The House was asked whether this Committee should have leave to consider the Bill, notwithstanding Standing Orders about money resolutions. Parliament, or rather the House of Commons, explicitly decided that we should not make any progress until there is a money resolution. Following the hon. Gentleman’s logic about obeying the wishes of the House of Commons on making progress, as his Bill was passed on Second Reading, I would say that the House has been explicitly asked whether we should make progress, ahead of a money resolution being granted, and the House has said, no, we should not. We had a very wide-ranging debate yesterday and a clear decision was taken.

The hon. Gentleman also alluded to what I said yesterday about the timing of the Boundary Commission report. I presume the other commissions have written to Members in other parts of the country; the Boundary Commission for England has certainly written to hon. Members representing English seats and has pointed out that it will report just before we come back in September. Of course, to anyone outside who is listening to or reading our proceedings, that might seem like a long way in the future, but it is only four full sitting weeks until we are able to consider those reports.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I have experience of the Boundary Commission for Scotland; there is a particular estate in my constituency and the commission was considering changing the boundaries. The problem that I found in that case was that the Boundary Commission for Scotland reported and the Government took a certain amount of time to consider that report.

Is there not a danger here that, although the right hon. Gentleman is technically right that in four sitting weeks the Boundary Commission could publish its findings, we are probably at the mercy of the Government’s introducing some sort of resolution to the House that Members can vote down? Forgive me, but I am not necessarily sure that I would trust the Government to bring forward such a resolution timeously.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman makes the perfectly fair point that bringing forward the Orders in Council, and scheduling the debate and the vote on those, are obviously matters for business managers—both Government and Opposition business managers, working in conjunction and having conversations with each other. That is entirely true.

However, I think I am right—I may be wrong, but I think I am right—in saying that there is a legislative weight on Ministers, in the sense that the boundary commissions have to report between the beginning of September and the beginning of October. I think I am also right in saying that the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 puts a weight on Ministers to bring forward the Orders in Council as soon as is practically possible. Ministers cannot just delay matters forever; there is actually an injunction to move with reasonable pace, allowing for some level of consideration.

Obviously I do not speak for the Government but my sense is that the Government would want to move reasonably quickly, so that we knew what sort of position we will be in. Also, it follows from what Ministers have said already, and the Leader of the House explicitly confirmed yesterday, that the Government are not trying to kill the Bill, but they want the House to have the opportunity to reflect on the boundary commissioners’ reports and, as I have said, to debate the Orders in Council. Then we can reflect and take further steps.

It is implicit in that process that the Orders in Council need to be introduced to give the House a chance to consider and debate them while there is still enough of the Session left so that if it was considered appropriate to grant the money resolution and proceed with consideration of the Bill, there would be enough time to see that process through. Effectively, that gives a window of opportunity, which Ministers will obviously reflect on when they make their decisions.

[Mr Harper]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, which is perfectly sensible. I just do not agree with matters being conducted “in parallel”, for two reasons. First, if we are going to debate the Bill, we should find out the House’s view of the boundary proposals. Although he asserts, as he did yesterday, that he knows what the answer is, in my experience—as a Back Bencher, a Minister and Government Chief Whip—it is always quite useful to test the opinion of the House through a Division rather than just assuming what the answer will be, because sometimes the answer will be a pleasant surprise and sometimes it will not be such a pleasant surprise. We should not assume that we know what the answer will be.

Secondly, if the Government are not successful in getting those Orders in Council through, the debate on the Bill would be better informed by the Government’s having listened to the concerns that Members express in the debate on the Orders in Council.

I know that it would be a slight tragedy, because I would effectively be arguing for not continuing to debate things in this Committee, but given that the boundary legislation is constitutional in nature and by definition affects every single Member of Parliament, there would be a case, were we to make progress with the Bill at some point, for the debate on it not to take place in Committee. Committee stage should take place on the Floor of the House, as it did for the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. That is generally what happens to constitutional legislation: all stages are taken on the Floor of the House.

That is another reason why it is better to wait for the House to have the opportunity to consider the boundary proposals. If the Government do not get those proposals through and want to make progress on the Bill, using it as a vehicle, it would be better if time were found for all its stages to be debated on the Floor of the House because of the nature of the subject matter. Realistically, we cannot do that when we do not know the outcome of the boundary commissions’ proposals.

For all those reasons, it is right for the Committee to adjourn. We shall know what the boundary commission reports are in four sitting weeks, and the Government will then reflect on them—I hope, reasonably quickly—before they come up with the Orders in Council. That is why it is right for the Committee to adjourn, so I hope that we agree that motion.

[David Linden]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen, and to see you back in the Chair.

I shall be brief, because we have had quite a lot of debate this week. It has been a pleasure to spend Monday, Tuesday and today with the Minister and the shadow Minister. It is apparent to me that one of the most pressing and gripping issues is parliamentary and constitutional reform, but perhaps that view is not shared by the wider public.

It is also a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean. I was intrigued by what he said about how yesterday the House of Commons made clear its view. If that is indeed the case, perhaps something new is happening: the right hon. Gentleman and the Government are now taking part in Opposition day votes. If they are saying that when the House of Commons votes on an Opposition day, the result should be taken note of, I look forward to future votes on the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign and many other issues. So when the House sends a very clear signal, the Government will listen to that.

[Mr Harper]

It is very clear. Certain motions passed by the House are binding, and motions such as yesterday’s, which was to direct the business of the House, are binding, so the vote yesterday was binding. However, some of the other motions that the hon. Gentleman is talking about are not binding, so to do what he suggests would require primary legislation.

[David Linden]

I have a lot of respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but that is probably just parliamentary gymnastics in action. When the House of Commons divides and the opinion of the 650 or so Members, who are sent here to represent their constituents, is tested, the Government cannot say, “On these particular votes the House of Commons’ voice can be heard and somehow respected, but those other votes are a bit inconvenient for us, because we don’t have the numbers, so we’ll just ignore them.” The Government were getting into a difficult position on Opposition day votes and when Government Members take part.

Yesterday, there was some debate about whether the Bill was being killed. I would probably have taken that view, but the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean and indeed the Minister have said no, the Government are not killing the Bill in Committee. They might not be killing the Bill, but it does feel as if it is in Guantanamo Bay at the moment—being held for numerous days without trial. We have not had the opportunity to put the Bill on trial, to scrutinise it line by line.

My final observation this morning is about something I found very telling last night. When the House divides, it is very unusual for Democratic Unionist party Members not to take part in a vote, and it is curious that, in the five, six or seven sittings of the Committee, the hon. Member for North Antrim has not always been present—he is a larger than life character, so if he is in the room, we tend to notice him. Yesterday I found the comments of the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) and the fact that Democratic Unionist party Members chose to abstain very interesting. It is fairly well known that the DUP is not united at the moment on the whole issue of reform of parliamentary constituencies.

I am happy to sit in Committee every Wednesday morning, but yesterday’s debate in the House was interesting. Comments such as those of the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) show the direction of travel in the House. He did a very good job of being both a Government loyalist and a rebel—the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean, as a former Chief Whip, is aware of how such speeches are made. He said that he was not happy about how the terms of yesterday’s motion were framed, and he would therefore go into the Lobby to support the Government. However, he made it absolutely clear that he does not support the reduction of 650 seats to 600.

We can come here and continue to have these debates, but it was clear yesterday that the direction of travel is that the democratically elected House of Commons does not support the number of seats being reduced from 650 to 600. I think we will find that out very clearly when the will of the House is tested on it.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Ninth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 4th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I call David Linden, who I am sure will take a different tack.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Owen, for what I believe is the ninth sitting of “I’m in a Public Bill Committee, Get Me Out of Here”. I do not want to detain the Committee for too long; I know there are various World cup fixtures for the rest of the day, so it would be disappointing if I sought to detain the Committee.

I want to reflect on events last night. I was struck that a number of right hon. and hon. Members were disappointed by the idea that votes and scrutiny were taking place during the supply and estimates process. I appreciate there was a football match on last night. I warmly congratulate England on a fantastic victory and wish them well in the quarter finals.

However, it strikes me as strange that right hon. and hon. Members, such as the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean, turn up to the Committee and say that bringing forward a money resolution would commit to spending huge amounts of public money, yet we have this bizarre situation in the UK Parliament where we authorise the spending of hundreds of millions of pounds through the supply and estimates process, and the idea is that it goes through on the nod. What we are looking for here is a money resolution that amounts to, I believe, somewhere between £8 million and £12 million, and we have the absolute charade that this Committee—

[The Chair]

Order. That is very wide of the mark. The motion before us is very narrow. The debate is on the Question that we change the time in the sittings motion from 9.30 am to 10 am.

[David Linden]

Thank you, Mr Owen, I am grateful for your guidance. I have no problems meeting at 10 o’clock. I would be quite happy to meet at 9.30, 9.31, 9.32, 9.33, 9.34, 9.35, 9.36, 9.37, 9.38, 9.39, 9.40, 9.41, 9.42, 9.43, 9.44—

[Christian Matheson]

Does the hon. Gentleman have a preference for a starting time?

[David Linden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am an early riser so my preference would be 6 am, 6.01, 6.02, 6.03, 6.04, 6.05, 6.06, 6.07, 6.08—

[Afzal Khan]

What is the hon. Gentleman’s opinion of a 10 o’clock start?

[David Linden]

Ten o’clock is a serious amount of the way through the day for me. Obviously, if the majority of the Committee wishes to meet at 10 o’clock, I would not seek to hold that back.

As I say, I would be happy to meet earlier in the morning. I am an avid listener of “Good Morning Scotland” on BBC Radio Scotland. As long as I have sufficient time to listen to that, I would be happy to come to this Committee to meet hon. Friends. I do not want to test the patience of the Chair too much this morning, so I will say that I am very happy with 10 o’clock. If other Members wish to take a different tack and meet earlier, I would be amenable to that.

Question put and agreed to.

[The Chair]

As the Committee cannot consider the clauses of the Bill until the House has agreed a money resolution, I call Afzal Khan to move that the Committee do now adjourn.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Tenth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 11th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

In a week in which there has been nothing normal in Parliament, it is good to meet here on Wednesday morning. It seems that this place is erupting, and that there are only two things we can count on in life: this Committee will meet, and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will probably intervene in the Adjournment debate in the House tonight. It is great to be here, and I look forward to next week’s sitting.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I will not delay the Committee for long. I wish to put on the record the fact that I am sorry that I could not attend last week. I was heartened to note, however, that the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton made the point that I would have made if I had been here. I am grateful to him and thank him for enabling me to be present in spirit, if not in the flesh.

Question put and agreed to.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Eleventh sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 11th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 18th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I am grateful for your guidance, Mr Owen, but Members will be pleased to hear that I did not intend to take them through a 13-year whistle-stop tour of my parliamentary career, tempting though that is.

Let me make a few remarks very much connected to the motion to adjourn. I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton on securing a private Member’s Bill slot in his first year in Parliament. Some of us have been here quite a long time and have never managed to get one, although, when I was a Minister, I spent a lot of Fridays here, generally explaining why people’s private Members’ Bills were not very well drafted or not a very good idea. However, the process is important, and he has carried the Bill to this point with great skill, so he should be pleased with that.

On the rather unfair contribution of the hon. Member for City of Chester about trains, I think I am right in saying that my hon. Friend the Minister was actually stuck on a tube train, which are of course run by Transport for London—a state-owned transport authority run by the Mayor of London. Therefore, any criticism—of course, Government Members did not criticise—should sit squarely with the Labour Mayor of London for running a malfunctioning tube system. I would not make that point, but the hon. Gentleman was slightly unfair to the rail system. I say that only because I was provoked.

The more serious and substantive point, which is relevant to timing and therefore to the motion to adjourn, is about what happens next. I think I am right in saying—I have put this on the record previously—that the Boundary Commission for England has made it clear that it intends to send its report to the Leader of the House before we return in September so that she can lay it before Parliament during the September sitting. I confess that I do not know what the other three boundary commissions intend. Perhaps the hon. Member for Glasgow East can inform us.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I am concerned about waiting on the Leader of the House to schedule this process. I declare an interest: I am expecting a daughter in the autumn. The Leader of the House promised that arrangements for proxy voting would be brought before Parliament, but she failed to do that. Last night, a major furore broke out because a pairing arrangement was broken. I therefore caution the right hon. Gentleman not to take too seriously the promises of the Leader of the House, who has not been great at bringing plans before the House.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman has made that point before. I think I am right in saying that the legislation that sets out how the Boundary Commission process works puts some pressure on the Government to bring forward proposals as soon as is practicable, so there is some legal force for doing that. I confess that I do not know what the other three boundary commissions will do, but certainly the Boundary Commission for England will produce its report in September, when we get back.

We will then know what the boundary commissions all recommend and, as I have said before, the Government have made it clear that they will look at those reports. They can then test the will of the House, and they have said that if Parliament takes the view—I hope it does not—that it does not want to proceed with what is set out in the boundary commissions’ reports, they will reflect on whether to bring forward a money resolution for the Bill and on whether the Bill is the right vehicle to deal with that set of circumstances.

I recognise that this process has been frustrating for the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton, but in terms of parliamentary weeks we actually do not have much longer to wait until we have the boundary commissions’ substantive reports in front of us. Members of the public will think that is a long way off, because they will take into account the summer, but it is actually not many sitting days away, so I counsel him to be a little more patient. I look forward to seeing him when the Committee reconvenes on Wednesday 5 September, and I join him in wishing all Committee members and those here serving Her Majesty’s Government a pleasant summer recess. I look forward to seeing everyone in September.

[David Linden]

It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood on the birth of her son, Elijah. I commend the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton, who has become a genuine friend since we were elected in June last year. The fact that he has had the patience to sit through this process is testament to his character. I very much hope we do not have to wait much longer.

We all saw the shenanigans play out last night, and we have all read in the press today that Government Whips threatened Conservative remainers—the rebels—with an early election, so we know that the Government possibly have an appetite to contest elections with the current boundaries and 650 seats. I therefore suggest that their current position is somewhat weak.

I come back to the idea of the private Member’s Bill system being an absolute sham. I have an interest in this Bill because, I must confess, I am interested in parliamentary and constitutional reform. With the greatest respect to the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton, one of the greatest difficulties I find about this place is that too often we indulge in navel gazing about it. It is sad that, although this Bill is very important in terms of the number of seats in this House and the wider issue of how we scrutinise legislation, it is not the only Bill for which a money resolution is being withheld. My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) has a very good Bill—the Refugees (Family Reunion) (No. 2) Bill—which is about how this country treats people who come from some of the most vulnerable parts of the world.

[Afzal Khan]

I want to ensure we are clear on this point. My position throughout has been that the Government should not withhold a money resolution from any private Member’s Bill that has passed Second Reading. We fully support the refugees Bill.

[David Linden]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I should clarify that that was definitely not a dig at the Labour party.

We come back to the central issue that we hear regularly, particularly from the Leader of the House, whose job is actually to stand up for the House in the Cabinet—I am not sure she always does that very well—about Parliament taking back control. The fundamental point is that last December, the House voted by a majority for this Bill on Second Reading. It authorised it to go into Committee, and the Committee of Selection set up this Public Bill Committee and commanded us, as Members of the House, to scrutinise the legislation line by line and clause by clause. It is not a very lengthy Bill. I daresay that if we had the money resolution, although some of us in this Room like to talk at length, we could probably consider this Bill clause by clause and line by line in one or two sittings at the most. It seems a waste of time. There are civil servants here, and it strikes me that it is a huge waste of their time, too, for us to go through this charade every single Wednesday morning. We turn up here and know that we are not going to make progress. It is disrespectful to the civil servants.

[Mr Harper]

I just want to pick up the point about Parliament taking back control and the democratic point. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, on 19 June, the Labour party tabled a motion asking the House whether we should debate the content of the Bill, notwithstanding the fact that there is not a money resolution. The House gave its clear view that we should not do that until there is a money resolution. The House was asked that question and it gave a very clear answer, by a majority of 15, that we should not proceed until there is a money resolution. That is indeed Parliament taking back control.

[David Linden]

Well, I recall that, on that day, the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) said that he favoured the Bill in principle, but he voted with the Government because of a technicality relating to how the motion was drafted. Although the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean is absolutely correct that the motion was defeated during Labour’s Opposition day debate, the main issue is that there is a clear majority in the House to retain 650 seats. I reckon that, if the question was put to hon. Members in a simple motion that says, “This House believes that there should be 650 seats in the House”, the right hon. Gentleman would find that there is a majority in the House for that. I would be very happy if that motion was brought forward. I would certainly be able to vote for it myself.

Tempted though I am to talk about my first year in Parliament—I was having a quick look in my diary, and it has been a very busy year indeed—I will spare the Committee this morning. I hope that, by the time we come back in September, the warm Prosecco and all the shenanigans of the Conservative party might have died down, although I do not hold my breath. Perhaps when we come back in September, Her Majesty’s Government will treat this Committee and the House with respect.

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

I start by apologising—I have been to see the parliamentary nurse; I am absolutely deaf in one ear.

As someone who has come from a constituency, I find it incredible that I come here every Wednesday morning and nothing happens. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is absolutely disrespectful. I have told people back in Lincoln about it: I am sorry, but it is wrong and it shows contempt for parliamentary procedure.

[David Linden]

The hon. Lady makes a very valid point. We have had 11 or 12 sittings of the Committee and, although it has been enjoyable, it is sad. When all the Parliamentary Private Secretaries were resigning, I thought my friend the hon. Member for Torbay would have the courage to do that, but he is hanging on. At this rate, he might end up as Prime Minister, being the only one left in the Government. We will hold out in that hope.

In all seriousness, we have reached a point in this Parliament where things are clearly fractured and the Government are very fragile. We will see what state they come back in after the summer. I would not rule out that we might be going back to the country.

[Mr Harper]

Without wishing to embarrass my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay, people need to understand that the only thing that keeps him as a Parliamentary Private Secretary is the thought of being able to come to this Committee every Wednesday. This Committee and the colleagues in Committee keep him serving in Her Majesty’s Government. We are all doing our bit to keep him here.

[David Linden]

The right hon. Gentleman has got that spot on. I made this point last week, but I have to repeat it. Although people generally say only two things in life are certain, death and taxes, in a Parliament where everything is falling about us, in my view the only two things in life that are certain are that the Committee will meet on a Wednesday and that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will take part in Adjournment debates.

It has been very nice spending this time on a Wednesday morning in Committee, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it, but we are all paid close to £80,000 a year to be legislators and to scrutinise legislation. We can come here to spend three, four, five or six minutes making funny speeches and having a bit of a laugh with each other but, fundamentally, we are all legislators—let us start behaving like them.

[The Chair]

Does the Minister wish to respond?

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Twelfth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 12th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 5th September 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Christian Matheson]

The right hon. Gentleman is right on the second point; the Bill would lapse at the end of this Session, so we would have to go for only another nine months. He answered his own question in the first part of his intervention, because he talked about the fact that if the imminent set of boundary proposals go through, the House would then be asked to withdraw this Bill. That is entirely my point: the Bill would continue to stand on the Order Paper and would still need some kind of cancellation.

That is where we should be heading with these proposals. The Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton has been read a Second time, and my advice to the Government would be simply this: move the money resolution, continue consideration in this Committee, and then kill the Bill off with a majority on Third Reading.

That would seem to be the obvious solution. If Conservative Members are confident that they have the majority—they may well have the majority to take the imminent proposals forward—they should follow the correct and democratic procedure, undertake the Committee stage and then cancel the Bill by voting against it on Third Reading. That is surely the way forward, because it would stop us having to meet every Wednesday at 10 o’clock—much as that is a great pleasure, Ms Dorries—albeit that that would only be to the end of this Session, and I am grateful to the more experienced right hon. Member for Forest of Dean, who is a former Chief Whip and obviously knows about procedure, for reminding me of that.

I am an avid reader of the Daily Mail, and there is an article in it today about this very issue. The article, which I am sure we can trust, alleges that members of the Government have written to Conservative MPs urging them to back the imminent set of proposals. Since this is absolutely germane to the procedures under consideration by the Committee, may I ask the Minister whether such a letter has indeed gone out to Conservative Members, and whether she will place a copy of that letter in the Library for us all to see?

Another allegation in the Daily Mail, and I see no reason not to trust it, is that an undertaking has been given to Conservative Members that no man will be left behind. This being the 21st century, we might also say “no woman”, or “no hon. Member” shall be left behind. In other words, some kind of grubby deal has been done to persuade Conservative Members to vote in favour of the imminent boundaries, irrespective of whether they consider it right or wrong, on the basis of how it would affect them personally. That is why I use the phrase “grubby deal”.

We cannot allow introspection and self-interest when we are considering parliamentary boundaries that are the basis of the way in which the House is elected and, therefore, the basis of our democracy and democratic procedures for the next 10 or 15 years. If the boundary procedures take as long next time as they did this time, it might even be more than 15 years. Let us hope not, because there is a consensus that parliamentary boundaries need to be reviewed. Will the Minister confirm whether a deal has been done with Conservative Members that no man will be left behind, and that self-interest should be a consideration when they are considering the imminent set of boundaries?

If that is the case, that is yet more reason why my hon. Friend’s Bill, which takes into account not self-interest but the broader interests of the United Kingdom and the basis of our democratic representation, should proceed, as opposed to grubby deals and cajoling based on self-interest, which is the allegation in the newspaper article. If the Minister confirmed or denied whether such a deal has taken place, I would be most grateful.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

As always, it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I place on the record my condolences to the hon. Member for Coventry North East following her husband’s sad death.

We meet here again—I think this is the 12th sitting of the Committee. I will not go over some of the lines I have used in previous sittings—much, I suspect, to the relief of Committee members—but I was struck by something that the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean said. He said it was good to come here to discuss the Bill, but the problem is that we cannot discuss the Bill; we are here to discuss a motion to sit. I am sure he did not want to inadvertently mislead the Committee. We have not been able to consider the Bill line by line or clause by clause, because the Government have not granted a money resolution.

It is, however, good to be back here today. We were promised that we would be coming back. There I was on the train down from Glasgow on Monday night, looking forward to seeing the hon. Member for Torbay and all members of the Committee this morning, and hoping that we would be able to discuss matters of more substance. We know that the report is being handed over to the Government today. We expect that some sort of statement will be made next week.

I would not go as far as saying that I am a great reader of the Daily Mail—it is not really worth the paper it is written on, in my view—but, like the hon. Member for City of Chester, I took some interest this morning, in my LexisNexis alerts, in the comments by the hon. Member for Wellingborough, who is of course a member of the Committee, saying that he would lead the charge of Tory rebels against the Bill. In a Parliament that is very divided—in terms of not only parliamentary arithmetic, but the Conservative party—that will be one of the great problems for the Government over the next couple of months.

The right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) has apparently issued a letter to Government Members. You may well have received it, Ms Dorries; I have not. I want to follow up on the point made by the hon. Member for City of Chester about no hon. Member being left behind. We have seen on countless occasions in this Parliament people who have marched the Conservative party up to the top of the hill, leading a rebellion, only for them to come back down the hill rather quickly.

[The Chair]

Order. Mr Linden, the purpose of this Committee is not to discuss the internal machinations of any political party and how it operates. If you could keep your comments to the Bill, I would be very grateful.

[David Linden]

I am grateful for that guidance. I do not think the Committee has enough time to talk about the internal machinations of the Conservative party—we would have to sit five or six times a week to have time to do that.

I seek assurances from the Minister that nobody has been made promises along the lines of, “Okay, we are abolishing your seat, but you can go off to the House of Lords.” That would completely contradict the idea that the reason for reducing the number of seats is to cut the cost of politics.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 13th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 12th September 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Harper]

As I said, I do not speak for the Government but it seems to me that that might be a sensible way forward. We are now in the short return in September and have almost run into the conference recess. There is obviously a period before we return on 9 October—we would reconvene on 10 October—to talk again. There is a little bit of time before we rise.

It is sometimes difficult to have usual channels conversations outside sitting times but I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he kicks those off. It is his Bill so he needs to initiate those conversations. We will see where we get to. We might be able to make considerable progress. That is just an idea; I do not speak for the Government, but it seems a perfectly constructive way forward and I commend it to the hon. Gentleman.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you back in the Chair, Mr Owen, for our proceedings. What a pleasure it is, as always, to follow the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean. I come to the Committee this morning to offer a couple of observations on what happened on Monday. I was at an event in Scotland with a number of my hon. Friends from the Scottish National party. We were all at a table and all of a sudden around 10 o’clock they all went on to their phones. It was like watching pupils get their report card from school. Everybody was frantically looking through what was happening to their seats, whether their seat would be abolished and what the proposals looked like.

I tend to take the view, as a Scottish nationalist, that at the next general election, I hope that we can have 59 fewer seats, by way of Scotland becoming independent. I accept that is perhaps not an immediate prospect. My view is that it is absolutely unacceptable for Scotland to lose the six or seven seats under the current proposals.

Last week, the hon. Member for City of Chester and I talked about our not-so-favourite newspaper, the Daily Mail. I confess I am not avid reader of the Financial Times but it was sitting in the Members’ Tea Room yesterday. I noticed a small article in it that suggested that the Government are now considering the possibility of delaying the votes on the boundary changes until after Brexit.

That presents several difficulties for the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton because we are in a two-year Session. The problem is, if we wait until Brexit at the end of March, we will probably be heading for prorogation before a new Queen’s Speech within a month of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I want to pick up on the hon. Gentleman’s point about democracy, because more recently than Second Reading, a motion was put to the House on 19 June. The House was given a clear choice about whether to allow this Committee to make progress on the Bill without a money resolution. Notwithstanding predictions about what the House might do in future when it is given the Orders in Council, it made a clear majority decision for us not to proceed, so the Government are actually following the will of the House.

[David Linden]

I am very grateful as always to the right hon. Gentleman, who participated in that debate, as I did. Several hon. Members were very clear when they stood up on the Back Benches. As a Government Back Bencher, the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay did very well when he suggested that, although he did not support the reduction to 600 seats, he would not vote on the motion based on a technicality, because he did not think that it was appropriate for the House to take that route.

We are all big enough and ugly enough to have conversations with hon. Members across the aisle, and it is clear that there is not a majority in the House. That is precisely why the Government will not have that vote on the Floor of the House, because frankly, they have enough ongoing division within themselves, let alone with the other side of the House. If the Government are serious about respecting the will of the House—if the Leader of the House in particular, who is one of those great people who believe in parliamentary sovereignty—and genuinely want to take back control, they should schedule the vote. We will have the vote.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[David Linden]

I forgot to say in my remarks that the first week back I will not be here, because I will have a second child by that point. In the course of this Bill Committee, two children will have been born and the money resolution has not been granted. I give advance notice and my apologies.

[Alex Norris]

I am sure that we all want to pass on our congratulations to the hon. Gentleman. Yes, let us at least get this done before those children are at university, if not at school.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson]

I am most grateful for your guidance, Mr Owen. As you will know, I always accept the guidance of the Chair. If it gives you any comfort, it would not delay matters long, because the order is extremely short and simple. There are two extra articles, one about electoral registers and one about revoking previous orders.

I will make an offer to the Minister, who I think may have not understood the full complexity—or lack thereof—of the orders. If it will help, between now and next Wednesday, I will draft the order for her, based on this. I am sure the Clerks would also be helpful and then she can give it to the parliamentary draftsmen, and we can get the work done. It might take a week or so longer for me to type up the orders for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but that is only because I am slow at typing.

[David Linden]

I am happy to take Scotland for the hon. Gentleman.

[Christian Matheson]

What a generous offer! There is a serious point. With the greatest respect—I moderate the tone of my language—the Minister’s excuse does not hold water and is not acceptable. The orders are simple—they simply reproduce what the boundary commissions gave us. They are not a reason to delay the vote in the House.

What is the reason? We know what it is: the Government do not have a majority. Some hon. Members in the extremist Brexiteer wing of the Conservative party are agitating about Brexit and looking to make trouble wherever they go, and others simply do not approve of reducing the size of the House while the size of the Executive—the Government—is not reduced, so the House cannot perform its scrutiny.

We have talked about party advantage this and party advantage that, but many hon. Members on both sides of the House are dedicated to the House, its service and its stature in being able to undertake its role of scrutinising the Government. They do not like the Government’s proposals, not because of self-interest, but because they damage the standing of the House. That needs to be put on the record as well as the suggestions of party advantage.

My offer stands. If the Minister picks up the phone and asks me to help her to draft the order, I will do so, but I suspect that the parliamentary draftsmen will do a better and quicker job, if they are given the nod. I wonder if the delay is not because the drafting is complicated, but because the Government are looking for yet another patch of long grass into which to kick it. Those patches are running out.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Fifteenth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 15th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

I am sorry that I was not here last week; I had something on. I made it a point to be here this week. I actually went to a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on motor neurone disease at 9.30 am this morning. One of my constituents has motor neurone disease and he really wanted me to attend. I had to leave that meeting to come here. I have to say, as someone who is new here, that the delaying tactics being engaged here are appalling. I am shocked by them. I would like that to be noted, for the record. It is disgusting.

As Members, we are paid an awful lot of money, compared with people on universal credit or who go to food banks. We hear a lot about the proper spending of taxpayers’ money, and that meeting is a resource that could be properly used. I could be down there now, learning more about motor neurone disease, but I am here instead. If I was here being productive, that would be something, but I am not. I am absolutely appalled, and Government Members should be ashamed of themselves.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is, as ever, a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Owen. I also apologise for not being here last Wednesday; I think Members will know my situation at home. I take this opportunity to place on the record my thanks and gratitude to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and particularly to the neonatal intensive care unit at the south Glasgow university hospital.

I do not intend to speak at any length today. I will make only one observation, to follow on from the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton. Yesterday I sat through the debate in the main Chamber on the Overseas Electors Bill, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies). I now find myself taking a rather unusual interest in money resolutions for private Members’ Bills. I was rather surprised to hear the Minister say yesterday that the proposals would cost £1 million a year for 10 years. One of the arguments that we hear at this Committee is that we have to be careful how we use public money, so I am not sure how those two arguments match up.

I heard numerous Members, particularly Conservative Members, talking about “votes for life.” I happen to disagree with the Bill that was before the House yesterday, none the less, I respect the fact that the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire managed to get a Second Reading for it. I respected the democratic vote of the House yesterday when it gave that Bill a money resolution. I respect the fact that next door, at 2 o’clock this afternoon, a Committee will meet to consider it clause by clause and line by line. The fundamental issue is that the House of Commons has commanded that that Bill be able to progress, but the Government are using delaying tactics by not granting a money resolution to the Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton, which is an abuse of Executive power. The Overseas Electors Bill will come back to the House at some point for its remaining stages, and I will vote against it on Third Reading, but I respect the fact that it will go to Committee this afternoon and that members of that Public Bill Committee will be able to scrutinise it line by line. That is exactly what we should be able to do here.

[Mr Harper]

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about the wishes of the House of Commons, it is worth putting on record that on 19 June, Opposition Front Benchers moved a motion to ask the House whether this Committee could consider the clauses of the Bill, notwithstanding the fact that no money resolution had been tabled. The House was asked for its opinion about whether we should proceed. It divided, and made a clear decision with a majority of 15 that we should not make any progress on the Bill. We can debate whether that was the right or wrong decision—obviously, the hon. Member for Lincoln believes that it was the wrong decision—but the point is that the House made that decision, not the Government, and that is why we are not making further progress.

[David Linden]

We have had that debate before, and we know that on the day, several Conservative Members said that they supported the principle of the Bill, but were voting against the motion on the basis of a technicality. As the parliamentary term continues, I think that more and more Conservatives will come out and say that they do not support the reduction of seats from 650 to 600. We will see what happens when that comes before the House.

I want to pick up on a point that the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean made about how long it takes to draft legislation. I am sorry, but I cannot buy that. Numerous times in this House, I have seen emergency legislation brought forward in respect of Northern Ireland, which is fast-tracked at all stages—done in one day—and drafted in a matter of days. If the Government can draft legislation for Northern Ireland very quickly and get it through all its stages in the House of Commons, they can do it with this Bill.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my good friend the hon. Member for Glasgow East. It is great to see him back in Committee.

I will pick up on two points that were queried by the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean. First, I confirm to the Committee that I am not at all dissatisfied with my lot; I might be a little bit dissatisfied with the Minister’s, but I am certainly not dissatisfied with mine. I consider it a privilege to be here, and I am fortunate to enjoy the work that I undertake. That work does, from time to time, include drafting, and I will come back to that in a moment, but I confirm that that Her Majesty’s Opposition support a review of boundaries. We are long overdue one.

I was not in the House at the time, but I am pretty sure that the Opposition voted against the last set of boundaries for the same reason we are unhappy with the current ones: the obsession with reducing seats from 650 to 600, and the tight margin around the national average that restricts local factors and puts numbers above everything. The equalisation of seats is probably a fair idea in itself, but there has to be a level of tolerance, and we know about the problem with people having fallen off the register and come back on, but we are still using out-of-date registers. Those three points would have been considered in this Committee, but we are not allowed to discuss the Bill. The Opposition are absolutely in favour of a new set of boundaries, and we want to see the review moved forward quickly, but I say to the right hon. Gentleman that the Opposition are not preventing it from happening. The Government are preventing it from happening, because they do not have the courage of their convictions and have not brought forward the new set of boundaries to be considered.

The right hon. Gentleman has considerably more experience in Government than me, although that is not hard, for now. Nevertheless, the order would be simple to draft. It is not primary legislation. When I drafted my proposed order last week, I based it on the previous order. A framework is already there that can be used. Once again, I do not accept that it is a complicated piece of drafting, not least because most of the order simply reproduces the boundary commissions’ proposals. That work has already been done, and there will not be very much need to amend those proposals.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Sixteenth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 16th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Harper]

It is not scientific. I think I set it out when I took through the original legislation. We made a decision to reduce the size of the House. There is nothing magic about 600. The current number is 650 and we decided to reduce that by about 10%, because that was about the amount we were shrinking of the rest of the public sector, and 600 is a round number. Rather than saying it was 587.5 or 592, it is 600. There was a conspiracy theory at the time about this special number that was specially designed to have some specific effect, but it is just a round number—600 seems a more sensible number than 604. There is nothing magic about it, but there was a general sense that it would be better to have slightly fewer Members. By comparison with similar western democracies, we actually have quite a lot of Members of Parliament at our level of government, and it seems sensible to make a modest reduction.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that we have a lot of Members of Parliament, but there are even more Members of the House of Lords. What will the Government do to reduce that number?

[Mr Harper]

I do not want to go too far into that or you will pull me up, Mr Owen, but I brought forward an ill-fated attempt both to radically reduce the size of the House of Lords and to make it more democratic. If we had received support from the Labour party for the programme motion so that we did not spend the whole of the 2010-15 Parliament talking about it, we might have made some progress. Sadly, that was not to be, and now it is not at the top of this Government’s priorities because we have other important matters to deal with.

I just want to put on record that I think it is incredibly important that we have an independent process for drawing boundaries, but that is indeed what we have in this country. I would like the Government and Parliament to be able to consider the boundaries that are drawn up by that independent process before we make progress with the Bill.

[David Linden]

It is, as ever, a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Owen. I looked at the Order Paper and saw that this is the sixteenth meeting of the Committee—my goodness, I am sure there will be a Netflix documentary about us soon.

I want to pick up on one or two points made by the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean. As I was not a Member of this place during his time as Chief Whip and when he was a member of the Government, I was not aware that he was a great reformer who sought to abolish our cronies in ermine. I am none the less disappointed that he was not successful at that—I am sure he would have had the support of the Scottish National party, and he certainly would have had my personal support. He is absolutely right to make it clear that the boundary commissions are entirely independent; none of the members of this esteemed Committee is questioning the impartiality of the fine civil servants who serve on the boundary commissions.

It comes back to the principle that has been directed to civil servants by Government, which is to reduce the number of seats from 650 to 600. The noise of a reversing JCB digger could almost be heard as the right hon. Gentleman talked about how they arrived at this magical number of 600. The technical way of saying how they found it is that they put a wet finger up in the air, and that is how they came up with the figure of 600 —I have other feelings about that.

I wanted to make a brief contribution today because, having looked at the Order Paper for the main Chamber, we are of course considering some very important legislation for Northern Ireland. One point that I made in Committee last week was that before my time as a Member in this House, when I was a researcher, and now as an MP, I have seen the Government countless times bring forward legislation for Northern Ireland very quickly. The Minister is a former Northern Ireland Minister herself, so she will know how quickly legislation for across the water can be drafted. I find it a little bit bizarre that legislation for Northern Ireland can be drafted so quickly and, indeed, passed so quickly— in one day—yet Orders in Council take months to be brought to the House.

[Mr Harper]

I may be wrong, but I think the reason why Northern Ireland legislation tends to be dealt with differently is because there is generally a consensus between Front Benchers on the proposals that are brought forward. It is only because there is agreement on the process that it can be done like that. If what is being proposed for Northern Ireland is politically contentious between the parties, it simply would not be possible to bring it forward on an emergency basis. We have established in our relatively limited debates in Committee on Adjournment motions that there is no consensus across the parties on the subject of parliamentary constituencies. I do not think that the process would work in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests.

[David Linden]

I caution the right hon. Gentleman—if he wants to talk about contentious issues in Northern Ireland, I do not think that the Government are on their finest form with some of their proposals for how they will treat Northern Ireland over the backstop. It is fine if he wants to lecture me on that—I dare him to do so.

I ask the Minister: how many civil servants in the Cabinet Office are working on the preparation for this? The final number I would like to find out from the Minister—I would be grateful if she gave it to me sooner rather than later—is this. We are talking about cutting the cost of politics, but we are approaching that wonderful time of year again when the turkeys are stuffed—when people put on ermine robes and become new Members of the House of Lords. It is around this time of year when we find out the long list of new Members of the House of Lords. How many new lords can we expect next year?

[The Chair]

Before I call the hon. Member for City of Chester, I just want to put on the record the fact that I understood every word that the hon. Member for Glasgow East said.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Seventeenth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 17th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 31st October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to see you back in the Chair, Ms Dorries, and I will not detain you or the Committee for very long this morning, save to echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton about private Members’ Bills, which were considered after Second Reading of his Bill, jumping the queue.

I have to say that this is not a British way of doing things. We queue in this country, and we take our fair turn. We take our fair turn even in Torbay, and we do things in the right order. It is discourteous not to follow a fair order and not to treat things fairly. It is discourteous not just to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, but to every hon. Member in this House who would seek to use the private Member’s Bill system to change the law or to have an effect on the democracy of our country. It is therefore discourteous to the whole House.

I say once again to the Minister that the absurdity of the situation will damage the reputation of the Government, but it will also damage the reputation of this House. At some point, when the House’s reputation is brought into disrepute, I hope that the House itself will make its own judgment on the Government’s actions in failing to bring forward the money resolution in fair time. It is clear to me now, and I think it is becoming even clearer—to hon. Members of all parties—that the delay is entirely politically motivated and flies in the face of the democratic decision taken on Second Reading. The longer it goes on, the greater the damage will be to the reputation of Parliament. I urge the Minister to bear that in mind as she considers whether to speak to colleagues about introducing a money resolution, so that we can get on with what the House asked us to get on with.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Dorries, for what I believe is now our 17th episode of “I’m in a Public Bill Committee…Get Me Out Of Here!” I had quite a number of people from Glasgow visiting Parliament over the last couple of weeks, including some people earlier in the week. I took them round, gave them a tour and explained how Parliament works or, as is so often the case, does not work.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton said, it was great to see the three private Members’ Bills progress on Friday. I found myself being lobbied by some constituents to speak in the Representation of the People (Young People's Enfra-nchisement and Education) Bill debate last Friday, and I had to break it to them rather gently that that Bill would not be voted on, and that it would not even be debated. I am now having a conversation with constituents about how private Members’ Bills actually work.

I refer hon. Members to page 23 of today’s Order Paper—we know that the next Friday sitting will be on 23 November, when we will debate the Stalking Protection Bill and the Parking (Code of Practice) Bill, which is almost certainly as far as we will get. However, because of the absolute nonsense that is the private Member’s Bill system, there is also the Voter Registration Bill, the Student Loans (Debt Interest) Bill, the Border Control Bill, the Green Belt (Protection) Bill, the Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Bill, and I could go on for several pages and mention the 150 or so Bills listed on the Order Paper—it is amazing—none of which will see the light of day.

[The Chair]

Please do not, Mr Linden.

[David Linden]

The point is that the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, was a lot further up the queue than that lot and is being held back. The House voted to give the Bill a Second Reading, and it commanded that the Bill come into Committee. We have now met on 17 occasions and got no further. Some of the Bills on the Order Paper have not even been printed yet. My hon. Friend has had the good grace to draft his Bill, and the House has commanded that it come to Committee for line-by-line scrutiny.

[Christian Matheson]

My hon. Friend is right: my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton had the good grace to draft the Bill. We must bear in mind that he also had the good grace to listen to representations from hon. Members from across the House and temper the Bill’s original proposals, so he has a record of listening to hon. Members and taking their suggestions on board.

[David Linden]

My hon. Friend is spot on. I remember speaking—in the distant past—on Second Reading in December 2017, as a young, fresh-faced MP. I will leave it to the Committee to judge how I have fared since. I remember making it clear during that debate—back when we could talk about the substance of the Bill—that I wanted to see the Bill amended in certain areas. I wanted the number of constituencies to be protected, as is the case in Northern Ireland, and I wanted us to consider the electoral quota again, but we have come so far down the path of parliamentary procedure and game playing from the Government, that we are unable to talk about the substance of the Bill.

I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, is reasonable and wants to listen to colleagues. If the Government gave the Bill a money resolution, they would not necessarily need to allow it to progress. All we ask them to do is give it a money resolution so that we can discuss its contents. My hon. Friend is an entirely reasonable individual who will take on board the opinions of Committee members, who are dwindling. The number of Conservative Members on the Committee who have shown up either just once or not at all is a gross discourtesy to the House.

With that, I will leave my comments for this week. Hopefully, when we return for the 18th episode of this charade, we might make some progress.

Question put and agreed to.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Eighteenth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 18th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 14th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Afzal Khan]

I could not agree more. This is a waste of our time and the public’s money. We could make real progress by taking a cross-party approach to a fundamental part of our democracy, but instead we are left debating procedure.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

As ever, it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I found myself coming here on a morning when, although this place is obviously very volatile at the best of times, in the past 24 hours, it has been even more volatile. The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton is right, and his point was backed up by the hon. Member for Lincoln: this whole exercise is entirely futile. When considering the amount of pressure that will exist in this place over the next 24 hours, few people would conclude that having another general election on the current boundaries before Parliament prorogues in April was unlikely; I think that it is probably very likely. We therefore come back to the central question about the boundaries that we want and what they should reflect. The boundaries of my constituency were put in place when I was 11 years old. I do not think that anyone here believes that constituency boundaries do not need to be looked at again. However, the fundamental question is whether to reduce the number of constituencies from 650 to 600, and I rather suspect that very soon we will be going to the country on the basis of 650.

[The Chair]

I just remind the Committee that the boundaries of my constituency were set in 1546.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Nineteeth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 19th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Christian Matheson]

I can only speak for myself on that one and as I am addressing you in the Chair, Ms Dorries, I can confirm I am not on my phone. My hon. Friend makes her own point, in her own inimitable style.

The other development that there has been on the matter in the past weeks was the Leader of the House’s announcement of three more sitting Fridays for consideration of Back-Bench business. If we pass the Bill through Committee soon enough, that would give us extra time for the consideration of the remaining stages on the Floor of the House, where, as we have said previously, Conservative Members would have the chance either to further amend the Bill or to vote it down in its entirety.

That is notwithstanding the advice of the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean—he is not in his place today but is normally an assiduous attender of the Committee—that it is very possible that all stages of a constitutional Bill such as this should be considered on the Floor of the House. You might have the honour and responsibility of chairing such a Committee of the whole House, Ms Dorries, now that you hold a more elevated position on the Panel of Chairs. I look forward to serving under your chairmanship in the future.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is an immense pleasure to see you in the Chair, as always, Ms Dorries. We meet for what I believe is the 19th time, and what a glorious number that is. It is not quite 48, but perhaps we will get there; we might have 48 sittings of this Committee.

Interestingly, this week we saw various members of the extreme Brexiteer wing of the Conservative party bemoaning the fact that we would not have seats in the European Parliament any more. We are, of course, losing those 73 Members of the European Parliament, which in some respects is right if we leave the European Union. However, those powers will come back from Brussels to this House, and it is the job of Members to scrutinise them. I gently suggest to the Government, through the Chair, that if we reduce our number of MEPs—some people are struggling to get their head around that concept—and those powers come back to the House, we should not reduce the number of legislators in this place.

Question put and agreed to.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Twentieth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 20th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 28th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I add my congratulations to the Minister. I call David Linden.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I echo the congratulations to the Minister. I note that, during this Bill’s Committee stage, three Members have either had children or announced that they have children on the way. That in itself probably sends a message that we seem to be doing a better job at procreation than at legislating. In all seriousness, I send my very best wishes to the Minister on behalf of myself and my party. I wish her and wee Alastair all the very best of luck.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen, and an even greater pleasure to echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton and the hon. Member for Glasgow East. This is a frustrating process but the Minister is very well thought of, not only in the Committee but in the wider House. I wish her and her family a successful and easy next few months as they prepare for the new addition to their family.

The Prime Minister is currently away selling her Brexit deal. She has talked about the need to unify the House and the country, and I have to say that I think she is right. We need something to bring the House back together. I suggest that making progress with this Bill would be a way of unifying hon. Members from right across the House. The current boundary proposal, which lies on the table awaiting the drafting of the orders, does not, I believe, have the support of the House, but we could put that to the test. Putting those proposals to the test might bring a certain sense of unity across the House when hon. Members are given the chance to vote against them.

Hon. Members could then unify behind the proposal made by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton and bring the House back together again. Making progress with the Bill might have some advantages for the Government, who obviously have their own problems with disunity at the moment. It would bring them back together and give them focus. I commend to the Minister that that might be a really good way forward.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Twenty First sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 21st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 5th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Committee do now adjourn.

Once again, Ms Dorries, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. This week has seen some unprecedented debates about parliamentary procedure, setting a collision course towards a constitutional crisis. At best, it is a dispute over the rights of Parliament versus the rights of the Government. These are the same issues that are at the heart of my private Member’s Bill and the same issues of the Government stalling progress.

My Bill would protect the balance between paid-up Government Ministers and Back-Bench MPs by retaining 650 as the total number of MPs. That is what makes it so ironic that the Government are overreaching their Executive powers: by refusing to grant a money resolution, they are exactly proving my point. Perhaps the Minister will consider granting us all an early Christmas present by allowing the Bill to progress.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

As ever, it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I follow the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton in saying that in a week when the House has passed a motion saying that Ministers in this Government have held Parliament in contempt, it sends a message about the sorry state we are in when Opposition day votes are not being adhered to and money resolutions are not coming forward for Bills that have been given a Second Reading in the House.

My only observation for the Committee this morning is about the feeling in this place. There is clearly a very volatile atmosphere, and it feels like the last days of a dying Government. The irony is that we will probably be going back to the electorate fairly soon for a general election, and it will be based on the old boundaries. There is a consensus in this House to look at the boundaries again, but not to reduce the seats from 650. We are in a very sorry state of affairs just now.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

What a great pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship once again, Ms Dorries! That pleasure continues, even if the pleasure of turning up unproductively to this Committee week after week also continues. It is always good to see you in the Chair.

I must echo my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton and the hon. Member for Glasgow East. The Government are descending into a slough of obloquy and quite frankly things have every hallmark of chaos. Will the Minister do the Committee a favour and show a little of the respect that the Government have not shown to the House this week by giving us an update on the orders whose publication we have been waiting for? She told us a couple of months ago that the problem was that they were very complicated. Will she update us on any conversations that she or her officials have had with the parliamentary draftsman? Does she feel that we are any closer today to seeing those orders published so that we can test the will of the House?

I look forward to seeing you again next week or the week after, Ms Dorries.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Twenty Third sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 23rd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 19th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. As the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton did, I wish every member of the Committee a very happy Christmas when it comes. This is not the first time I have been in a Committee Room this week. I was here on Monday night taking part in the Tenth Delegated Legislation Committee to pass the relevant statutory instrument to reduce the stake on fixed-odds betting terminals. While I was there, I reflected on the fact that we had been asking the Government to make that change for some time. Eventually, they brought forward that legislation, which I wholeheartedly welcome.

My only plea as we head into the Christmas recess is that on the morning of 25 December, when I go to my stocking, I find a little note from the Minister saying, “The money resolution will be coming. Happy Christmas.” I look forward to spending Wednesday mornings in 2019 with this Committee, because nothing fills my heart more than to spend a Wednesday morning with you in the Chair, Ms Dorries, and with members of the Committee. With that, I wish you all a very happy Christmas.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Twenty Fourth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 24th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th January 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I will speak briefly this morning, to say to Members that as I have not been to the Committee for a while, I thought that as the new year approached it would be good to re-acquaint myself with old friends. I also wanted to say, having read the Hansard report of the last Committee meeting, that I am grateful that our good friend the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton got his Christmas present just before Christmas, as the Government did publish the immigration White Paper. I know that he was hoping for that at the last Committee meeting, so I am pleased that that Christmas present was delivered. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Glasgow East got the little note in his stocking from the Minister that he was hoping for; I suspect not.

I am looking forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about whether any progress has been made on drafting the statutory instrument. Obviously, the House’s agenda is very full at the moment with debates on European Union matters, and I know that lots of pieces of legislation that are critical to our exit from the European Union need to be dealt with, so I am not hopeful that the House will find the opportunity to consider this matter at an early stage. However, I look forward to hearing whether progress will be made at the earliest opportunity, and I join you, Mr Owen, in wishing everyone a happy new year.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

As ever, it is an immense pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen, and I extend my best wishes to all members of the Committee for a happy, peaceful and prosperous new year. I spent yesterday afternoon taking part in a debate on democracy in Uganda—an excellent debate, led by the hon. Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams). In that long debate, it struck me a little that we as Members of the British Parliament are busy quite rightly holding Uganda to account for its lack of democracy, but for almost a year, I have been taking part in a Bill Committee that is considering reducing the number of legislators who can scrutinise the Government just as more powers are coming back from the European Union, and, last year, more than 20 new Members of the House of Lords were appointed. We as Members of the British Parliament have the audacity to lecture other countries about how democracy should work when we are trying to shrink the number of people who can scrutinise the Government in this country. I will leave that thought with Members. I look forward to participating in the Committee from now until we prorogue around March, if we get that far, but it has been an absolute pleasure to be part of the Committee in 2018, and I look forward to many more meetings in 2019.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

May I also say what a pleasure it is to see you in the Chair and serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen? I echo other Members in giving my best wishes to all members of the Committee for the new year, and it is a particular pleasure to see the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean back in his place. He said that he had not been to several sessions recently; I have to tell him that he has not missed much, although not for want of trying. On a more serious note, I have missed his presence. I have paid tribute to him in the past for his attendance in the Committee, and also for some of his guidance. He made the point that it would not be appropriate—I think I am correctly paraphrasing his argument—for us to proceed with this Bill until the current boundary proposals have been considered and voted on by this House. I do not necessarily agree with him, but he has made that point consistently. I say to the Minister that perhaps a new year is the time for a resolution to bring forward the proposals for the boundaries, so that we can make that decision one way or the other.

The right hon. Gentleman is correct that the House is dealing with a lot of legislation around Brexit at the moment, but that should not be a reason not to proceed with the important task of getting these new boundaries sorted. The credibility of the House depends on that. The delay is frustrating to members of this Committee and to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton. It is also frustrating as regards the quality of democracy.

The right hon. Gentleman has made the point at previous sittings that the House is based on boundaries using population figures that are 20 years out of date. We need to move forward and, therefore, I urge the Minister to do her best to bring forward the orders as soon as possible in this term, so that we can get on with the business of renewing this House’s mandate.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Twenty Eighth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 28th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th February 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Committee do now adjourn.

I, too, welcome Members back after a month’s break. I do not know where all the Minister’s Back Benchers are, but I am sure she can hold the fort.

This week has shown that the Prime Minister is insistent on recklessly running down the clock, in a desperate attempt to force MPs to choose between her deal and no deal. I cannot help but feel that the same irresponsible tactics are being deployed to prevent progress on this Bill. Although it is evident that delaying strategies are the favoured approach of the Government, that does not mean that they would solve any problems.

As I highlighted in our last sitting, the urgency of the Bill has not diminished. In fact, against the backdrop of Brexit, the need for the Bill should be even more apparent, so will the Minister enlighten us as to any developments?

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

As ever, it is an immense pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Owen, and to be back in this esteemed Public Bill Committee, which is making rapid progress through the legislative agenda—not. Having missed the Committee for a month, I have been reflecting on some of the other things that I have been able to do on a Wednesday morning. Of course, it has been a great sadness not to be here every Wednesday morning, which is why I am particularly pleased to be back.

I am incredibly busy today. I served on a Delegated Legislation Committee at 8.55 am, and now I am serving on this very heavy Committee. In all seriousness, this afternoon I am serving on the Committee considering the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) (Amendment) Bill, which was brought forward by the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers). I have been reflecting on how quickly we have managed to make progress on that Bill but not this one. Although I fully support the right hon. Lady in trying to take that legislation through, it sticks in my craw somewhat that, in the course of one afternoon, we will consider that private Member’s Bill, take it through its process and quite rightly ensure that it lands on the statute book, whereas the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton is forced to come here—no longer weekly, but monthly—and sit through this complete charade.

That is symptomatic of what is happening in this place. Whether it is Brexit or this Bill, the Government are running down the clock until Parliament prorogues for a new Session, when, as we know, this Bill will unfortunately die. Of course, it is never too late. The Minister could go back to her Chief Whip and say, “We need to take this Bill through and ensure that the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton gets it on the statute book.” I think that is very unlikely, but I will still come here every month and make those points.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)]

It is a great pleasure to see you again this morning, Mr Owen. I have missed the Committee’s various interpretations of proceedings before today, but I can confirm, contrary to all such interpretations, that the order is in hand, as it was before, and that work proceeds to bring it back to Parliament as expected.

[Afzal Khan]

I am sad that, throughout this whole history, the Minister has been unable to enlighten us as to any progress. Even now, the word “progress” means nothing. Can the Minister give us some dates or a timescale?

[David Linden]

rose—

[The Chair]

As we are not overcrowded, you may come in, Mr Linden.

[David Linden]

I am grateful to you for calling me, Mr Owen; I know that many hundreds of colleagues wish to contribute, so I will be brief. Perhaps the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton and I can make our way to the Table Office after this sitting and table some named day questions to pin down the Minister specifically on how she and her civil servants are getting on with those Orders in Council. The hon. Gentleman is right that we should nail down those dates. I look forward to joining him in the Table Office once we have finished with the hundreds of other speeches that we are about to hear.

[The Chair]

Would Mr Khan like the last word?

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Thirtieth sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 30th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th April 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I will endeavour to speak briefly. It is a great pleasure to be here at our 30th meeting. I have been to many of them—not all of them. I will happily support the motion moved by the hon. Gentleman when the Committee comes to decide on it.

The only other two things I have to say, if you will indulge me, Mr Owen, are that I wish the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North, all good luck on her maternity leave. The Committee has had a number of maternity and paternity considerations, which perhaps indicates how long it has been going for. Finally, I welcome the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay. He has served a long apprenticeship—perhaps too long—as a Parliamentary Private Secretary, which he has conducted with some considerable skill, and I was incredibly pleased to see the Prime Minister recognise his talents. He has been rewarded—if indeed reward is the word—by taking over from my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North in sitting in the ministerial chair. On that note, having wished him well, I am happy to support the motion.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is, as always, a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. You reminded us that this is the 30th sitting of the Committee. It is a sad indictment that there have been more Committee sittings than I have had birthdays on this Earth, but that is another story.

I also welcome the Minister to his position and once again wish the hon. Member for Norwich North all the best as she goes through the last part of her pregnancy. As the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean said, the Minister had been a PPS on the Bill Committee for some time. In that role, he was often restricted from speaking, so I am sure we are all excited to hear what he has to say, not just about the Bill but about any potential money resolution to it. We will reserve judgment on whether a new Minister means a new approach. I know it is not a fashionable thing to do, but I remind the Committee that the House voted for the Bill at Second Reading and wanted to see it proceed. I hope he will bear that in mind.

If we are to take the Committee seriously—whether we will be here in June is a different story—it is still not too late to bring forward a money resolution. The Government can magic up Fridays, as we have seen in recent months, and if they could do that for a couple of extra Fridays and there is the will in the House to bring forward the money resolution, we could get the Bill expedited. I am sure that the Minister, a reforming Member of this House who will want to honour the House’s will, will stand up in a few minutes to say exactly that.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

What a great pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I echo the sentiments of the hon. Member for Glasgow East and the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean in welcoming the Minister and congratulating him on his appointment to the Government. I also wish him well for what I believe will be his first oral questions later today. On behalf of the Opposition, I send our very best wishes to the hon. Member for Norwich North—the Minister on maternity leave. Perhaps the Minister will pass on our best wishes to her and her family. We reckon, as has been suggested, this will be the third baby—God willing—born during the Committee’s proceedings. That was a subtle dig by the hon. Member for Glasgow East, as some of us have had a lot more birthdays than 30 sittings. I promise the hon. Gentleman that it will come to him eventually; another young whippersnapper will be snapping at his heels before long and if this Committee goes on long enough, who knows if it might be his own child doing the chattering?

The Opposition fully supports the proposal, made by the Member in charge, for an additional sitting. A cloud on the horizon is the uncertainty over the date of the next state opening of Parliament, the Prorogation of Parliament and the start of the next parliamentary year. We are still waiting to hear from the Government when that date might be. As the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean has reminded me in the past—and I am always grateful for his counsel, as he is an experienced Member—once the new parliamentary year starts, this Bill will fall.

As long as the current parliamentary Session continues, the Opposition will support the endeavours of the Member in charge in pushing the Bill forward. The bottom line is that the need for the Bill has not gone away. To have had 30 sittings of the Committee without a money resolution is an affront to the House. Whether or not we have a state opening of Parliament and the Government sort out their own internal difficulties, bite the bullet and have the courage to put a new parliamentary Session’s legislative programme to the House for approval, the need for the Bill and for a new, modern, fair and up-to-date set of boundaries will still be present. Whatever happens on 5 June, if we go into July or if the parliamentary Session spills over into the autumn, we will still be here pressing the case for up-to-date boundaries.

The Minister has been a PPS, which is almost like taking a vow of silence, but this is his opportunity to stand up and give us an understanding about progress in the drafting of the orders for the Bill, and about any discussion, through the usual channels and the office of the Leader of the House, about when time might be made available to debate the current boundary proposals, so that if they are rejected—or indeed if they are passed—we can move on with consideration of the Bill. I shall be here to support my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton on 5 June, because we need to move forward and get some certainty about these boundaries. I wish the Minister well and ask him to take our best wishes to the hon. Member for Norwich North, and I hope he will now be able to illuminate the Committee about progress on these matters.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Kevin Foster)]

Thank you, Mr Owen. I look forward to working with you in the spirit of co-operation and positive engagement, so that we can do the best for those we seek to represent and serve.

I thank Members for their best wishes to me on taking on this new role and I will ensure that their best wishes are passed on to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North, who starts her maternity leave this week. It is a sign of a modern, inclusive Parliament that we have arrangements in place to ensure that taking on the role of Government Minister does not require a choice between having a family and pursuing a ministerial career.

I am happy to support the motion and the proposal to sit on 5 June. Having been at the other sittings on the Benches behind, it would be disappointing if I were now to find that this was the last sitting, and that I would no longer see my friends the hon. Members for Glasgow East and for Manchester, Gorton at 10am on Wednesdays. As they are aware, the House has considered since Second Reading whether the Bill should proceed and be considered in this Committee without a money resolution, and it has decided that that should not be the case. The Government have made clear, through the usual channels, their view on a money resolution.

That said, reports have been laid before the House from the independent boundary commission, and the work on the order that will be necessary to bring before Parliament continues although, as Hon. Members will appreciate, it is a lengthy and complex document, which will require significant preparation before being presented.

[David Linden]

Can the Minister update the House on the progress of that document? Is it 25%, 50% or 75% done? Surely the Minister will have some idea from the civil servants what kind of progress they are making. Can he give the Committee an indication of the percentage of progress in that respect?

[Kevin Foster]

The hon. Gentleman will realise that statutory instruments are not completed by a third, a half or a quarter, but once orders are prepared, they are ready to come before the House. It is a complex motion, given that it covers every street and house in the United Kingdom, in terms of ensuring that they are appropriately represented in this place. It will be submitted in due course.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Thirty First sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee Debate: 31st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 5th June 2019 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We now come to the motion to adjourn, as the Committee cannot consider the clauses of the Bill until the House has agreed a money resolution.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Committee do now adjourn.—(Afzal Khan.)

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Owen. I am grateful for your permission to remove our jackets, because it is very hot.

The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton is absolutely right that the Government are completely in meltdown. In many respects, it is good to attend this Committee, because it is the one thing that can be guaranteed to run like clockwork. At a time when many bizarre things are happening in this country—whether it is that complete and utter moron President Trump coming to visit and having the red carpet rolled out for him, or the fact that almost half the Conservative party seems to be running for leader—it is just fantastic to be here to focus on what I think is called getting on with the day job. But of course we cannot get on with the day job, because a money resolution has not been provided for the Bill.

As the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton said, a member of our Committee is running for leader of the Conservative party. The hon. Gentleman is right that whenever this circus leaves town and we finally have a new Prime Minister, it will be interesting to see what they will do about parliamentary boundaries. Will they push ahead with the democratically unjust proposal to reduce the number of seats from 650 to 600, or will they recognise—as the Procedure Committee has done—that Parliament has a lot more legislation coming forward? The Procedure Committee, which is probably the weightiest in this Parliament, is looking at whether there should be a budgetary Committee, given how much pressure and scrutiny is on us.

On the one hand, Ministers are saying, “There is so much for MPs to do at the moment,” and on the other hand I suspect that the Minister will tell us, “It is very important to cut the cost of politics and reduce the number of seats to 600.” Someone is wrong somewhere along the line. I think the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton is right to try to protect the number of seats at 650.

We shall see what happens over the next few weeks, and whether we face the prospect of people backing Boris and having Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. We would then have two blonde-haired eejits running a country, one here and one on the other side of the pond.

[The Chair]

Order. We do not refer to our colleagues by their first name in Committee and it is unparliamentary to call anybody an idiot.

[David Linden]

I used the word eejit. They are very different in terms of their interpretation. However, I apologise—I should of course have referred to the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

Before I get myself into any more trouble I will sit down. I wish the Minister well. I suspect that he will tell us that while work continues apace, the Government are frightfully busy, when we all know that that is not the case, given that the Secretary of State is spending most of his day walking around the park filming selfie videos.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. My hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow East and for Manchester, Gorton raised an intriguing prospect. As with so much else in the country at the moment, the fate of this Bill may well depend on the outcome of the Conservative leadership contest. However, as we have said previously, the question of how our democracy is founded and operates should not be a matter for party politics or internal party politics. Its credibility and honesty are corroded when the main driver behind the boundary proposals is anything other than what is best for the United Kingdom.

This week is of course the 75th anniversary of D-day, when we celebrate the heroism of the many thousands of men and women who launched the liberation of western Europe, and eventually freed it from the yoke of fascism, leading to the end of hostilities in Europe in the second world war. I make that point to remind the Committee that one year ago almost to the week—the Minister was not the Minister then, but he was present in the Committee—I made exactly the same point.

I make no apology for paying tribute at the start of June every year to the men and women who fought and in many cases died for our freedom. However, the relevant point to this Committee is that I made the same point a year ago, yet here we are one year later, and there has been no progress. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East talked about proceedings continuing apace, but they are not. If they had been continuing apace, we would not be here now. One year later I am making a similar speech and we are no further forward.

I therefore say with great respect to the Minister, suggestions that work is continuing no longer have any credibility. It is time to put up or shut up, if I may be so blunt with the Government. Bring these proposals forward, let the House make a decision and then we can move forward, one way or the other. There is no logical reason why the orders should not have been drafted, and the Government have run out of excuses.