Private Members’ Bills

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bone]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Just to cheer him up, I can tell him that if Friday 18 November had been one of the days selected by the Government, there would have been a Referendums Bill introduced by hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, which he might have been interested in.

Sometimes, private Members’ Bills serve the purpose of getting the issue discussed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) has just demonstrated. They also serve the purpose of getting the matter into law. There are a great deal many difficulties involved in getting a private Member’s Bill through the House, and that is why we should not reduce the number of days available on which to debate them. I shall give the House an example of someone who knew how to do all this. Anthony Steen, the former Member for Totnes, got his Anti-Slavery Day Bill through in the dying days of the last Government when no one was watching what he was up to. That was a very important Bill, and we now celebrate anti-slavery day on 18 October. He has changed the national law, and well done to him, but that was only possible because he used the procedures. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) will agree that this is all about knowing the procedures, and that that is what we, as parliamentarians, should be doing.

I must tell the House why I have a problem with the Deputy Leader of the House. He knows of my admiration for him. We have, in the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House, two superb parliamentarians, supported by an equally superb Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell). Selfishly, I hope that they will remain in their posts on 6 May, or whenever the next reshuffle is going to be. We are lucky to have them, and that is why I am slightly disappointed. I cannot remember what the Deputy Leader of the House did before he came to the House. I had the unfortunate problem of being a chartered accountant, and I am therefore used to adding sums up and getting wrong numbers. I think that the hon. Gentleman might have been a chartered accountant, too, because he has added the sums up and got a wrong number. Standing Order No. 14(4) clearly states:

“Private Members’ bills shall have precedence over government business on thirteen Fridays in each session to be appointed by the House.”

There is no question about that.

Now this is where I was a little disappointed by the hon. Member for Warrington North, who I guess is shadow Deputy Leader of the House. In the last Session of the last Government, there were only five private Members’ days. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady mutters—she could have acted properly and intervened—that that is because it was a short Session. She well knows, however, that that is not allowed for in the Standing Orders. We must have 13 days.

If I were to be generous to the last Labour Government, as I always am, I would say that they quite properly argued that the eight days lost because it was a short Session should be added on to the longer Session that would run from the election in May—not to the November of that year, but to that of the year after. I am happy to accept this argument, which gives us eight more days for a start.

The Government have given us the 13 days that we would normally have in a Session—there is no argument about that; they are absolutely correct—but there are, of course, the eight that have been missed. That takes us up to 21 already. Because the Government are moving towards a five-year, fixed-term Parliament, which I agree with, and there will be one-year parliamentary Sessions, they have added from November 2011 to May 2012—I reckon that is six months—and assumed that to be half a year. What we need, the Government have said, is half of 13, which seems to come to four.

Now I reckon half of 13—as an accountant, I have to round up—comes to seven. What we should have, then, are the 13 days the Government have given us, the eight that the previous Government took away, plus the seven for the additional term. If I add seven and 13, I get 20 and if I add eight, I get 28. This is my problem; I think we should have 28 days.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is, as ever, making a very powerful speech. Does he agree that, on that basis, the amendment—I fully understand the reasons why it was not moved—is a compromise? It might almost be described as the third way.

[Mr Bone]

As always, I was trying to be helpful and considerate towards the Government. In fact, on the day before yesterday, I had a fine meeting in private with the Leader of the House. After our conversation, he was very clear. I had impressed him so much that he said, “Peter, I have not given you a wink, nod or any indication that the Government have moved from their current position”, which is, of course, exactly what happened. They did not move and they slapped this motion down for tonight.

Let us get back to the number of days: the 13 plus the seven that we should get under the Government’s own very generous thought, as they are extending the Session. If we add the eight, we get 28 days. I would have accepted 28 days, but I thought, “Let us look at it another way, as accountants always do it twice”. If we are moving towards one-year parliamentary Sessions—from May to May— we are going to have 13 private Members’ Fridays in each year. That is very clear, and that will kick in in May 2012. From May 2010 when this Parliament started—on 18 May, I think—to May 2011 would provide us with 13 days. From May 2011 to May 2012 would provide another 13, making 26. As a chartered accountant, I have done the sums and come up with two different answers. We should have either 26 days or 28 days.

Unfortunately, when the Deputy Leader of the House came up with his calculations, he came up with 17 days, which is the 13 days that we had to be given, plus the extra four. That is why I wonder whether he is another chartered accountant. He has clearly come up with a completely different result from that most people expected.

On a serious note, I just think that this was a great opportunity to fix broken promises. I re-read the Prime Minister’s excellent speech of 26 May 2009 when he said he wanted to return powers to Parliament and to Back Benchers. He wanted MPs to be independent. I have taken that to heart and tried to be independent and tried to be a parliamentarian, but the lack of days will restrict my ability to do that.

I encountered another difficulty today when I received a text message from a constituent saying “If you do not get this amendment through, it will mean that you will be at home more often.” I want to know what the Deputy Leader of the House will say to Mrs Bone about that, because it seems to me that parliamentarians should be here scrutinising the Government. The provision of a private Members’ day once a month—which is what this amounts to—is surely not a problem, and I feel that we have missed an opportunity.

I know that there are pressures on those in government, I know that the Executive want to control everything, and I understand that that is the old way. I also know that the Prime Minister wants to get away from that, and wants a new politics that will make the House of Commons more important. I did not move my amendment for precisely the reason given by the Deputy Leader of the House: we are moving towards the establishment of a Business of the House Committee, and once we have such a Committee, none of these problems will arise. Everything will be sweetness and light, because Parliament rather than the Executive will allocate the days.

I was so encouraged by the fact that reform of the private Members’ Bills procedure was being considered seriously that it would have been absurd for me to argue for the provision of 13 extra Fridays. In a few months’ time the Leader of the House will stand at the Dispatch Box, announce that private Members’ Bills will be debated on Wednesday evenings, and say “We have thought about this, and we are going to grant such-and-such a number of extra days.” I see this as a holding debate in anticipation of those reforms. I am encouraged by what has happened today, and I will therefore support the motion in the hope of seeing the reforms introduced a little later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hollobone]

Those wise words from across the Irish sea are extremely welcome, and it would be great if more Members of this House thought that way. I know that the hon. Gentleman is an assiduous attender, who stands up and speaks up in this place on behalf of his constituents. He is not frightened of scrutinising legislation, and private Members’ Bills are all part of that parliamentary process. Each of us, no matter what party we represent, is the only person from our constituency entitled to sit in this Chamber and speak up on behalf of our constituents. If we can do that to good effect on those 13 Fridays, more power to our elbow.

Mention has been made of the late, great Eric Forth, who was an outstanding parliamentarian. One of Eric’s great attributes was that although he did try to scrutinise private Members’ Bills in great detail, he would not have been in favour of reducing the number of parliamentary Fridays. He would have said that it is everyone’s right to try to introduce legislation, but that legislation must be scrutinised effectively in this place. We heard a comment earlier about the difficulties of Bills making progress, but the point of this place is not to make progress with Bills: it is to scrutinise them and to allow their passage once they are in a fit and proper shape. I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) will demonstrate that to good effect this Friday, given the years of work he has put into honing his legislation in fine detail, and ensuring that every nook and cranny has been explored and every possible difficulty ironed out. If Parliament did not exist, we would not be able to scrutinise legislation in that way, which is why these private Members’ Fridays are so important.

[Mr Nuttall]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one way in which good ideas in private Members’ Bills reach the statute book, even if they are not successful in reaching it on a Friday through the normal procedure, is by being adopted by the Government and, on occasion, by being fitted into Government Bills?

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend speaks wise words, and I can give him an exact example of what he describes from this very week. I have sponsored the non-controversial Face Coverings (Regulation) Bill. It is one of my Bills that has not reached the Floor of the House, but on Monday the Home Secretary stood at the Dispatch Box and said that the Government were looking into the difficulty of controlling all the yobs in these riots who cover their faces. My Bill would make it an offence for someone to cover their face for the purpose of obscuring their identity. I was pleased to be able to draw that to the Home Secretary’s attention this week, and I very much hope that she will look at my Bill and see how it might be best adapted to meet the Government’s needs. The quickest way to facilitate any advantage to this country in that becoming law would be to introduce the Bill in Government time in this place.

However, in response to my hon. Friend, may I say that I have a feeling that one reason why the Government are nervous about granting too many private Members’ Fridays is because they have recently had a bad experience in this place with the Daylight Saving Bill? Lots of hon. Members were determined to see that Bill make progress and they gave up their Friday to attend in numbers to ensure that its Second Reading passed, despite Government opposition. Governments do not like getting their fingers burned, which may be one reason why they have, in effect, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough said, reduced the number of days to which this House is entitled.

I am sorry, but the House of Commons does not exist for the convenience of Her Majesty’s Government. The House of Commons exists to hold Her Majesty’s Government to account, because without Parliament the Executive would be able to run amok. On these Benches sit centuries of tradition and scrutiny of the Executive, and the private Members’ Bill process is part of that process of trying to improve the life of our nation. I am disappointed that the Government are being so mean as to allow only four extra private Members’ days, because at the very least the number should be 13. I very much hope that when the House Business Committee is up and running, we will have a proper sensible allocation of days for private Members’ Bills.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

Neither am I a lawyer—that is even worse. I was formerly an optician, which is perhaps why I want to focus on the interests of all Members of the House in finding what suits them best.

Let me deal with an issue that the hon. Member for Kettering raised, which is not directly related to private Members’ Bills but is within the same context—the time allocated to the Backbench Business Committee. He said there was some arcane or obscure formula, but there is not: the formula was determined by the Wright Committee. The Government were committed to introducing the reforms proposed by the Wright Committee and that is exactly what we did. We have been clear throughout that we will continue to allocate time to the Backbench Business Committee to enable it to do its work and to provide time for Back-Bench Members of the House. We have done so throughout this Session on the basis of about one day a week. We will continue to do exactly what we have done, and most people believe that the allocation is fair and has been used sensibly.

[Mr Nuttall]

rose—

[Mr Heath]

This is the last time that I shall give way, because I was about to conclude.

[Mr Nuttall]

Is there any particular reason why no Fridays have been allocated in February or March 2012?

[Mr Heath]

We must remember the interests of Members who have been successful in the ballot and want their legislation to proceed. If they are to succeed in putting something on the statute book, they need time at the end of the process. This is a bicameral Parliament. The Commons must do its work, but another place must scrutinise and revise legislation. It does not make sense to have days for private Members’ Bills abutting the end of the Session, effectively preventing worthy pieces of legislation that have completed scrutiny in the Commons from making further progress. There is a rationale behind the proposals, but that is a matter for the House. I hope that the House will take a view on the matter. I am satisfied that we are making another significant reform to the way in which the House works, again taking time away from the Executive and giving it to Back-Bench Members, which is right, proper and proportionate. I commend the motion to the House.

Question put and agreed to.