Tributes to the Speaker’s Chaplain
Dominic Grieve Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Ind)
I shall be very brief. Throughout the time that Rose has been the chaplain to the Commons, it has been abundantly clear that her pastoral skills are outstanding. Those of us who have gone to the monthly communion in St Margaret’s have come to value her fellowship and her company. In addition, we have had the benefit of seeing her around the building and enjoying her pastoral support at times when some of us have needed it.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), I have had Rose visit my parish to preach, during a time when we had an interregnum between priests. She was something of a star attraction, which showed just how extensive her reach had become in using her chaplaincy of the Commons to spread the gospel and the word that she wanted to put forward in her own way. I will be very sorry at her departure, but I am delighted that the Bishopric of Dover will be available to her, where I am sure her pastoral skills will be used to full measure. I wish to use this opportunity—on behalf of both myself and my wife, who got to know her—to wish her farewell.
Finally, I would just say that Rose was of course your choice, Mr Speaker, which I seem to remember attracted some controversy at the time. As we consider the end of your career here in the House and of your period as Speaker, I would just like to repeat my thanks to you. It is abundantly clear that if you have ruffled feathers, there are some feathers you ruffled for very good reasons. Ten years on, those who look back will conclude that our proceedings and our life in this House were enhanced by many of the things that you did.
European Union (Withdrawal)
Dominic Grieve Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
I must confess that I am surprised by my right hon. and learned Friend’s astonishment because I have been making the case for WTO rules for some time. It has been a sensible way to proceed and will allow us to carry on trading as we do with many other countries.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
My right hon. Friend says that the House’s role is one of scrutiny, and I agree, yet does he not see that there is an incompatibility between that scrutiny and in fact taking steps through Prorogation to deprive us of the effective opportunity to carry it out? When considering that, he may also agree with me that so much in this House depends on trust. How can we have trust when there have already been a number of examples of the Government’s making inaccurate statements, such as, first, that the papers prepared for its Yellowhammer briefing were the product of a previous Administration when they were not; and secondly, and perhaps most pertinently, when it appears that the facts as stated by the Government as to the reasons for Prorogation have turned out to be entirely inaccurate and are now causing the Government considerable difficulties over their duty of candour in litigation? When he aggregates all that together, perhaps my right hon. Friend might begin to understand why many of us have finally decided that this House must take action.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. and learned Friend is very learned but his learning does not always lead him in the right direction. The Prorogation is completely routine. When I was first—and, indeed, last—at this Dispatch Box, Opposition Front Benchers were asking for the Session to be brought to an end. We were merely being our obliging selves in leading forth to a new Queen’s Speech in the general course of events.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). I also listened carefully to what my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) had to say. He made an important point, which has come up again, about the will of the people.
It is absolutely right that most of us in the House voted to trigger article 50. We did so out of respect for the result of the referendum, even if we did not like it. Three and a half years down the track, however, it is perfectly obvious to many of us that this country is going towards a very bad outcome. The longer the period that passes since the referendum, the more unclear it is, in truth, what the will of the people is. We have no idea. While I have always been willing to see a deal go through, I want it to go back to the public, because I am left with a compelling sense that we are actually taking people to a destination that they do not want at all.
Unfortunately, a section of my party has become hijacked by a narrow sector of those who voted to leave and who are simply using the will of the people as an instrument of potential tyranny against any of those who disagree with them. That is clear to me from the stream of emails that I routinely receive. I am afraid that it has now been fuelled by the words of the Prime Minister, and, indeed—I regret to have to say this, but I will—by the words of the Leader of the House today.
It was fascinating to listen to the Leader of the House. I had always imagined that he had marketed himself in politics as an individual who formed part of the grandest tradition of old-fashioned Conservatism, so I was rather surprised when I heard him say that one of his objections to why the House should do its duty was that it would interfere with the great set pieces that followed a state opening of Parliament. Of course, as a Conservative, I love the great set pieces of our constitution, but I do not think that, at a time of national emergency, my constituents in Beaconsfield would have much regard for me if I said that those great set pieces must come before my doing my duty.
I must also say to the Leader of the House, with regret—it was the first time that I had heard him speak at the Dispatch Box—that I regretted his rather cheap sarcasm at the expense of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin). Let me gently point out that he has more months of experience of high office than my right hon. Friend has days in his job. The truth is that the Government have decided to pursue a ruthless policy of trying to shut down all debate—debate of the most legitimate kind about the future of our country and its wellbeing—and in doing so the unconstitutional acts come wholly from the Government. I disagree totally with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House when he says that in some way this House is acting unconstitutionally in what it does: our constitution is adaptable, and I am afraid it is having to adapt to the reality that the Government do not have a majority and have not had one for some time. And that is just one of those things that happens, and it is doing it, actually, in a fairly reasonable fashion, although it would be better if we listened politely to each other and stopped trying to beat each other over the head, as I detect is the practice the Government are now adopting.
Finally, I say this. Obviously I believe that this motion is entirely desirable and entirely in keeping with the House’s proper traditions and is something that should be passed, and the Bill that follows it, so that the evils of a no-deal Brexit are avoided, because I believe passionately that evil will follow. But I was struck that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House suddenly referred to “A Man for All Seasons”, I think because Sir Thomas More is one of his heroes. He will recollect that Sir Thomas said, when told that opposition to the King would mean death, “Well, these are but devices to frighten children.” So I am afraid that if he thinks the device of withdrawing the Whip this evening is going to change my mind or that of my right hon. and hon. Friends, he has got another thing coming, because it will be treated with the contempt it deserves.
Several hon. Members rose—
Business of the House
Dominic Grieve Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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John Redwood
I think my hon. Friend misheard me. I made no such allegation about her or my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset. I was paying them all due civility in saying that they may win, but nobody can claim that there is a big consensus in this House or a large potential majority on either side, so we need more time than is being offered in this business motion. Lightning legislation is bad legislation.
As we have already heard, this potential legislation poses fundamental questions about the nature of government, how government is conducted and the powers of Government, which go to the heart of our very processes, and seeks to overturn conventions and Standing Orders that have been in place and accepted by Governments of both persuasions for a long time. That should happen only after due consideration. I am not one to think that there should be no constitutional change or experiment. I have often been against my own Government and have understood the need to use the available procedures to get them to change their mind. However, we should not enter into a radical transformation on the basis of just a few hours’ debate, which is what we are being offered in this business motion.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
Viewing this situation objectively, I do not believe that there is any constitutional impropriety whatsoever in what the House is being asked to do this afternoon. It simply does not arise. The truth is that we have a flexible constitution. I rather agree with my right hon. Friend that one often wants more time, but it is precisely when one faces an emergency that the flexibility of the constitution becomes most desirable, and I cannot alter the fact that the emergency exists. With that in mind, I would hope that he would appreciate that there is nothing improper in what the House is doing. In fact, it is only since a recent date in this House’s history that we have been fettered by the Government’s almost total control of the Order Paper.
John Redwood
Again, I fear that my right hon. Friend did not listen carefully. I never suggested any impropriety. I said that we wished to proceed in an orderly manner, which Mr Speaker will ensure that we can do, and that there are occasions on which we need to change our procedures or modify our Standing Orders. On this occasion, however, the case I want to make is that there are some fundamental issues that are worthy of rather longer time than is being offered in this business motion.
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice)
Dominic Grieve Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I am not sure that members of the public who come to watch our debates necessarily appreciate our role as the High Court of Parliament, but that is what we are. By virtue of history, we have been given a whole range of powers normally enjoyed only by others of Her Majesty’s courts, by which we regulate our affairs and maintain our own privilege—which also means, by virtue of the Bill of Rights of 1689, that we cannot be impugned in any other court—and by which we have coercive powers for dealing with those who transgress in front of us, and that can include Government Ministers. The difficulty we have—I say this having served on the Standards and Privileges Committee and having also been a Law Officer—is that our powers are entirely archaic, almost completely unusable, and in many cases so old-fashioned and antiquated that any attempt to use them would probably run foul of most modern principles of justice. I am afraid that this situation has been allowed to prevail for decade after decade by a mixture of a failure of the House to grip the problems it faces and, of course, the happy complacence of Government, who have known that in reality the teeth are not really present for this House to be able to assert its authority.
Nowhere do we see all that come to a head more than with this issue. It is all very well criticising the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) for using a blunt instrument, but there are only blunt instruments to be used. He was fully entitled to table the motion and to seek from the Government the documents that he wanted. The Government chose—slightly to my surprise, I have to say—not even to oppose the motion, even though there were compelling arguments that could be presented. Indeed, I continue to be of the view that the Law Officers’ advice should not be published because it undermines the ability to provide proper confidential advice to Government.
That said, the method that was adopted—this may simply have been because of the speed with which the drafting took place—was undoubtedly very blunt. Given its ordinary meaning, as I interpret it the Humble Address extends not just to the Attorney General’s advice but to every bit of advice about the development and impact of the withdrawal agreement that was provided through the civil service to Government at any time during the two and a half years of tortuous negotiations with the EU. I have no doubt that most of that advice is unlikely to be of great relevance to what the House wanted to see. Moreover, some of it may undoubtedly contain confidential material that, if put in the public domain, could well jeopardise the national interest. To take an example, I do not suppose that the House would seriously contemplate requiring the Government to disclose the name of agents who work for MI5 or MI6. But we have to face that fact that this House does have the coercive power to make such a request. That highlights not only the untrammelled nature of the House’s sovereignty but the extent to which it can be open to abuse.
During the course of the debate on the Humble Address, I think the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras became aware that the terms of the motion were rather widely cast, because at that point he restricted them to seeking
“the final and full advice provided by the Attorney General to the Cabinet concerning the terms of any withdrawal agreement.”—[Official Report, 13 November 2018; Vol. 649, c. 235.]
Having been a Law Officer and supplied advice to Government, I simply make the point that although it may surprise the House a little, I have simply no idea whether there ever was a final and full advice of the kind that was identified. In my experience, the advice provided by Law Officers comes in a continuous stream of dribs and drabs which, by letter to the relevant Department, to the Prime Minister and, if necessary, to the Cabinet, touches on a multiplicity of things without necessarily being drawn into a whole. I must say, therefore, that what is being sought is about as easy to measure as the length of a piece of string. It is not at all clear what the motion was seeking to grab on to, although I accept that in so far as it was seeking to acquire the original documents of some of the advice that was provided, it is manifestly clear that it has not been complied with; that is apparent.
Faced with that problem, where should the House go? Within this House there will, of course, be differences of view: the Government wish to protect their position; and the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras and all those on the Opposition Benches, and indeed some on my own Benches, who wish either to embarrass the Government or just to see this information, are going to be profoundly dissatisfied. The question of the culpability of Ministers is in any case not uniform. In defence of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, he is not a member of the Cabinet, although he attends Cabinet, and, as the point has been made, he is covered by legal and professional privilege when it comes to disclosing the advice that he provides to his client. The one person who cannot be blamed for this mess is him. He came along to provide the best explanation he could yesterday, but the fact is he is not responsible for making the decision as to whether the documents that the House wants are disclosed. I assume that that may have been a collective decision of the Cabinet, although knowing the way that the Cabinet works, I am not even sure that that is necessarily the case. It may be an individual Minister, or it may indeed be my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Whichever it is, this also emphasises the blunt nature of the instrument, which is then reflected in the motion that has been brought before the House today.
Referring the matter to the Committee of Privileges may be seen to be getting the Government a little off the hook, but it is not a stupid course of action. I can, I am afraid, anticipate a little how it is likely to progress because, in its session, the Committee of Privileges will immediately come to the awareness of just how complex and bedevilling this entire area is because of the lack of clarity of both our Standing Orders and the processes of this House. However, simply to go ahead without doing that and to move to a statement of contempt—I am not quite sure and it has not really been explained where, if that is passed, we would proceed next—does not seem to me, on balance, to be the better course of action. I say on balance because I have sympathy with the position of the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras. However, I acknowledge that, on the face of it, we have processes in this House and if this House is to work properly, they should be capable of being met.
What this highlights over and over again for me, and has done for many years since I came here and particularly after I became a Law Officer, is that our processes and powers bear no relation to the real world in which we have to operate and that, as a consequence, they can cause serious injustice. That is something that all of us should be very careful to prevent.
Business of the House (European Union (Withdrawal) Act)
Dominic Grieve Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I, too, wish to thank the Government for listening to the Procedure Committee and the engagement they had with the Committee over how the debate should be conducted. On that, I have nothing further to add.
Members will recall that in June issues arose about how the House should proceed in the event of the Government motion being rejected. At that time, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister represented to me that if the motions to be considered thereafter were to be made amendable, it would in some way interfere with her ability to negotiate, which was why—having reflected on her view—I took the decision to vote against my own amendment when it came before the House. I listened to what she had to say to me. But the reality remains that we have an unsatisfactory procedure to resolve differences of opinion in the House if—and it is obviously an “if”—we come to a point at which the Government do not succeed in their motion.
The opportunity exists this afternoon to cure that anomaly. As was so rightly said by the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), it is contrary to all sensible practice and—I have to say—slightly disrespectful of the role of this House, that we should end up with a situation in which we have unamendable motions for consideration at a time when Parliament should be fully focused on trying to find the means to resolve outstanding issues. It is for that reason that I tabled this amendment, which would in simple terms cure that problem and provide reassurance, even before we start on these really important debates, that whatever the outcome next week, we would have a means of continuing the debate thereafter, if we needed to, in a way that must be in conformity with what any right-thinking Member of this House would think to be the proper procedure and process to adopt. For that reason, I am grateful to my many right hon. and hon. Friends who have indicated their support for the amendment, and to the many right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches who have done likewise.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
When the right hon. and learned Gentleman came to the Procedure Committee, he proposed free-standing resolutions alongside the Government’s motion. Would he like to clarify now that his amendment is not proposing that process, and that it is proposing something that would be an expression of will rather than an expression of the opinion of the House?
Mr Grieve
I am very happy to do so. The hon. Lady might remember that when I came before the Procedure Committee on the main business in this motion, I tried to be as conciliatory as possible in finding a way through. I am delighted that the Government have accepted the first principle of having amendable motions. The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that if we do not resolve this issue next week, there will be further amendable motions to be considered under the programme laid out in section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
Is my right hon. and learned Friend not attempting, in his amendment to the business of the House motion, effectively to amend primary legislation?
Mr Grieve
Most certainly not. We have just had in the past few hours an example of the assertion of parliamentary sovereignty, which I understand to be dear to many Members on this side of the House and elsewhere. I say to my hon. Friend that no statute may fetter in any way the procedure and processes that this House chooses to adopt. There is therefore no incompatibility whatsoever between this motion and any statute. Mr Speaker, I beg to move the amendment.
Mr Speaker
We will come to the proposition of that matter being put to the test of the House in due course, but there is a choreography to these things, so it will not happen just yet. If Mr Efford wishes to orate, he has his opportunity to do so now.
English Votes for English Laws
Dominic Grieve Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Ms Eagle
I am going to make a bit of progress; I will give way later, but I am only on page 2 of my speech. [Interruption.] It might get longer if hon. Gentlemen provoke me.
Labour Members consider that this issue should have been properly dealt with as part of a much wider process involving a constitutional convention to examine a range of issues in a more holistic way. A genuine attempt should have been made to come to a cross-party agreement between the parties represented in this place, and with wider civil society. Proceeding in this consensual way, rather than in the blatantly partisan way the Government have chosen, would have hugely increased their chances of introducing a successful and sustainable change. No such attempt has been made. The Leader of the House has already attempted to suggest that it has, but I do not mean a cobbled-together Cabinet Sub-Committee established months before a general election that failed to come to any consensus even between the governing coalition parties; I mean a genuine attempt to reach cross-party consensus, in which all points of view are heard and properly tested and a mutually agreed way forward is pursued.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I am not unsympathetic to the hon. Lady’s desire to look at this issue in the round, but it seems to me that it is incumbent on the Labour Opposition to explain their position, because some of us have been banging on about the unworkability of the devolution settlements ever since they first went through this House. The problems we are facing today were inherent in the failure to address that at the outset. Is it not also the case that the problem we now face requires goodwill, and while I do think I accept the hon. Lady’s goodwill, I am afraid I do not entirely accept any goodwill from SNP Members, who do not seem to me to actually desire to resolve this issue, rather than use it as an instrument to—
Ms Eagle
I have already given way once to the hon. Gentleman and it is important that I now get on to make the rest of my speech, so that other people can contribute to our debate.
The proposals before us risk exacerbating strains on the Union. They are shoddy, and conceived in a highly partisan fashion, and therefore they are deeply flawed. They are much more aggressive in their handing over of powers to English MPs than the McKay commission decided was wise, yet the Leader of the House has not explained why he has chosen to ignore the advice and the warnings coming from a commission that the Government appointed. Wherever they have had to exercise a judgment, the Government have opted for more powerful and less nuanced powers for English MPs. They have fallen short of advocating an English Parliament, perhaps because England forms 85% of the whole Union and any English First Minister would probably be more powerful than a UK Prime Minister, but they are certainly incubating a proto-English Parliament within this supposedly Union Parliament.
Mr Grieve
I am interested to hear that comment. I agree with the hon. Lady that creating an English Parliament would be unworkable, and yet the message from Scottish National party members is that we should create an English Parliament. If there is already one area of meeting of minds, the Labour party must be starting to work towards a solution, because I think that she is beginning to accept that something must be done about English votes for English laws.
Ms Eagle
In all three statements or speeches that I have made in the past three weeks, I have begun by conceding exactly that point. I have done it not for show but because it is what we believe.
The proposals mean that, if a Government do not command a majority in England, it is doubtful that they could actually govern. The complete lack of effective consultation with any other party outside of Government on some of the controversial aspects of these proposals makes them partisan and divisive when they should have been accomplished on a cross-party basis. When it comes to making changes of such constitutional importance and technical complexity, it is only right that they should be scrutinised effectively.
The Government’s proposals fundamentally alter the constitution and the operations of this House, as well as impacting on the other place. In those circumstances, it is appropriate to set up a Joint Committee of both Houses to consider the proposals in greater depth. I call on the Leader of the House to do so.
Joint Committees of both Houses have a strong tradition of effective cross-party scrutiny of complex issues of constitutional importance, both legislative and non-legislative. For example, the highly regarded Cunningham Committee looked at the non-legislative issue of conventions between both Houses. The report was noted with approval in both Houses in 2007, and has stood the test of time and sets a clear precedent on which the Government should now proceed.
Mr Grieve
I was going to make this point later, but I may as well make it now because that is the purpose of debate. I must say that I have some slight anxiety about the justiciability of measures that we take in this House. I appreciate article 9 of the Bill of Rights, but we are certainly moving into rather uncharted territory and I do not think we can rule out legal challenges to decisions on the Speaker’s certificate.
Mr Davis
The House will take that on board.
My other point about what the Leader of the House has done so far is to commend him on at least attempting to address the problem of the Barnett consequentials. This is very important for the point on which I will finish. The problem started in 1998. I guess that the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) will remember—no one else in the House would have reason to do so—that in 1998 I argued for fiscal autonomy for the new Scottish Parliament, for a more federal solution and for proper treatment of the West Lothian question. All those things were self-evident in 1998 as long-term problems with the devolution proposal. I must say to Opposition Front Benchers, that our points were received with a completely implacable lack of understanding, let alone a lack of sympathy, from the primary driver of that, Gordon Brown.
The problem arises from the confusion in the Scotland Act and the Scotland Bill that is currently going through the House. The 1998 Act failed to create what, in my view, would have been stable fiscal autonomy for the current Holyrood Parliament. It would have done so if it had separated out the funding streams for the Scottish Parliament’s spending and the spending that emanates from this Parliament. If that had been done, we would have had very few, if any, Barnett consequentials.
We cannot of course solve everything. The right hon. Member for Gordon has quite rightly made the point about other impacts, such as in relation to tuition fees. There will be tax competition between the parts of the United Kingdom, and competition between policies of various sorts. We cannot resolve all that. We cannot necessarily give Scottish Members some sort of veto over England’s right to do the best for its citizens. This is not entirely soluble, but it would have been much more soluble if we had written the Scotland Act in such a way that it created a more rational structure than what exists in our kingdom at the moment.
All that gives us and the Leader of the House the problematic issue of how this can be done with utter fairness to all sides, because that is the test. I am afraid that the British establishment always seems to have a preference for fudge rather than clarity and for ambiguity rather than logic. We see that written through all this constitutional area, because the establishment does not want to address the problem. The establishment does not want an English First Minister who is more powerful than the UK Prime Minister. Yet if we went down a proper route of English devolution—if that is what it is—we would of course end up with an English Government who were a challenge to the UK Government.
The Leader of the House has now given us the summer to think about this. We can, I hope, deliberate about it at great length before we return in September, and I hope that he will take on board what he hears today. The only point of principle I will make to him is that the test for this is very simple. It is not whether this creates two classes of MP, but whether it creates two classes of citizen. The test is whether it deals with and removes any prospective grievance not from the Members on the SNP Benches, the Labour Benches or the Government Benches, but from the people we represent. It should take away any grievance for the English, the Scots, the Welsh and the Northern Irish, not any grievance for the Labour party, the Conservative party, the SNP or the Liberal Democrats. The test he should apply is whether it puts our citizens first.
Pete Wishart
I am almost grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that issue. I wondered how long I would be on my feet before someone mentioned the non-existent foxhunting debate, which was scheduled to happen but disappeared because the Government wanted to change the rules before they had the debate. What I said last week was that if something is in the Scottish interest, we will take an interest in it. We could not have garnered any more interest in foxhunting. I had hundreds if not thousands of requests from my constituents to come to the unitary UK Parliament to express their concerns on the issue. I make no apologies for saying that I would have voted proudly on that issue to represent my constituents’ interests.
Mr Grieve
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman had many expressions of interest, but I receive many expressions of interest from my constituents about matters in Scotland. I am a member of the John Muir Trust and I get frequent letters from other members of the trust who live in England, expressing their concern about the Scottish Government’s actions in respect of wind farms on wild land, but I have to accept that that matter is devolved to Scotland. I say sincerely to the hon. Gentleman that I do not find his argument very credible.
Pete Wishart
We heard last week and we have heard in the run-up to this debate that there is massive unhappiness in this House about who is voting on whose issues. I want to come on to our concerns and difficulties. I hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but we are profoundly annoyed and upset that he and all the other English Members are voting down things that have been agreed in the Scottish Parliament and that are wanted by every party in the Scottish Parliament. Scotland sent 56 of us here and we are profoundly disappointed in the right hon. and learned Gentleman for voting those things down. It seems as though there are English votes for English laws, but also English votes for Scottish laws. When it came to foxhunting, we took the view that there was concern and interest among our constituents. We are saying to Government Members, this cannot go on.
Pete Wishart
I will not give way to the right hon. and learned Gentleman again.
The situation cannot go on whereby English Members continually and consistently vote down the expressed desires of Scottish Members of Parliament, with no consequences or response. That is why we have taken an interest. I want to deal with foxhunting, because I imagine that a few other comments will be made about it.
Ian C. Lucas
I do not really understand the intervention, but what I say to the hon. Gentleman is that I am not proposing that we treat MPs in England and Wales differently—this Government are. I am not entitled to make representations or speak on health issues in Wales, which is exactly the same as the hon. Gentleman. Assembly Members speak on such matters, because this Parliament set in place a National Assembly for Wales. It made that decision and it was agreed to, in a referendum, by the people of Wales. Entirely the same option is available to this or any other Government.
Mr Grieve
Forgive me but I find it difficult to follow the hon. Gentleman’s argument. There is nothing in these proposals that will prevent him from continuing to make representations to any English health authority or to any English Minister on his constituents’ behalf—absolutely nothing.
Ian C. Lucas
What they will prevent me from doing is putting down amendments in Committee.
Ian C. Lucas
I do not believe that these measures will safeguard the United Kingdom, and I do not believe that they are the same proposals that the Conservative party placed before the electorate. That is why I oppose them so vehemently.
Ian C. Lucas
I will not give way because I have taken up enough time.
I do not believe that constitutional issues of this magnitude should be addressed by Standing Orders, because they go to the heart of the future of the United Kingdom. This United Kingdom is in peril. It frightened me last week at Prime Minister’s questions when the Prime Minister quoted a nationalist in support of his proposals on EVEL.
We have to stand against these amendments to Standing Orders because, contrary to what the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness said, they are not minimal. I hope that I have shown that they will have profound practical implications for my constituents and profound constitutional implications for this place. They go to the heart of the equality of Members in this Chamber, because they will restrict the voting rights of individual Members of Parliament on Committees in a way that has not been done before.
Mark Tami
I accept that that was the result then. The right hon. Gentleman’s party was strongly opposed to devolution at that time, but it has had a bit of a turn of face, and is now promoting it. Indeed, a number of people who were very much against devolution have gone down the road to Damascus and changed their opinion, and I am pleased they have.
Mr Grieve
I think that the hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood one of the issues. I want to keep the United Kingdom together, so I am prepared to work within the devolution settlements that have been achieved, and to try to build on them. England, however, has been a unitary state since the ninth century, and I have to tell him that my constituents have no interest whatsoever in the idea of regional devolution. They do want more accountability at local government level, but that is an entirely different matter.
Mark Tami
There is no model that will fit every situation. The Mayor of London and the London Assembly, for instance, may not be able to legislate, but they have far-reaching powers in respect of transport and policing. I note that the Government are not intent on restricting the right of London MPs to vote on issues that affect other parts of England. The Government are considering devolving powers to city regions At some time in the future, will we say that MPs in those regions are prevented from taking a view on other parts of England? I do not think that the Government are saying that now, but where does it start and where does it end?
A number of Members have asked what constitutes an English-only issue. No one really knows. It will be up to you to decide, Mr Speaker, and good luck to you, Sir, There is clearly a flaw in the proposals, in that there does not appear to be a system allowing us to make representations on whether Wales or Scotland, for instance, should be included in the process.
Sir William Cash
I shall not cite the obvious George Orwell quote that comes to mind about all animals being equal, because that might be thought to be rather disrespectful. However, the bottom line is that the hon. Gentleman is just not right. When we create different functions, voters expect the Member of Parliament who represents them to be accountable for those functions. This is not a great mystery or great science. It is a simple question of where the lines are drawn. They were drawn by the United Kingdom Parliament and that is where the matter stands.
I want to remind Members about the Scotland Act 1998, although not many who were in Parliament at the time are still here—
Sir William Cash
My right hon. and learned Friend was indeed here.
I tabled an amendment on the West Lothian question during the passage of the Bill in 1998, but it was pushed off the Order Paper. The bottom line is that it was disregarded by the Labour Government and, I have to say, by my own party. It simply proposed an amendment to the Standing Orders to deal with this obvious problem. The problem existed in 1998, and it is still here now. We are still talking about it and running round in circles without recognising that this is a question of fairness. I am astonished by this. As I have said, I very much enjoy the company of the Scottish nationalists in this Chamber, and the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire makes some very entertaining and theatrical speeches, but he talks about federalism one minute and about independence the next. He mixes the two up. We know that he wants independence and we give him credit for that, but he is not going to get it.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to be able to participate in this debate. It is a particular pleasure to do so at a rather later stage, because that obliges one to sit on the Benches and listen to the speeches, which I have found very illuminating.
What we have heard in the debate is an extraordinary celebration of the Union of the United Kingdom. We did not just hear it in the contributions of the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) or my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), whose maiden speech I was delighted to hear, or, for that matter, in those of Labour MPs from Welsh constituencies. The most compelling argument for the Union of the United Kingdom came from the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). His argument against these proposals was that it is, in effect, impossible to dissociate decisions of any kind taken in this House from knock-on consequences north of the border. He is right. Ultimately, every decision that is taken by an Assembly or Parliament in the United Kingdom has a knock-on effect elsewhere, outside the area of its jurisdiction.
During my years as Attorney General, it was apparent to me how relevant that point is. For example, crime is an entirely cross-border issue. Criminals move freely between Liverpool and Glasgow, and indeed every other part of our United Kingdom. One of the tasks I had as Attorney General was to work closely with the Lord Advocate—an association, I might add, entirely dependent on goodwill and almost nothing else—in order to make sure that in tackling crime, the interests of the United Kingdom, not just those of England, England and Wales or Scotland, were properly addressed.
I have to say to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire that while I understood the thrust of his arguments, they came as a little bit of a surprise, considering that for the past 18 years this House, with his enthusiastic participation, has been progressively deconstructing the United Kingdom and making such co-operation harder and harder to achieve.
The whole reason why we are having this debate is, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) so rightly said, that our constituents in England are increasingly irked by what they see as a lack of comity, which is the direct consequence of the way in which we have decided to operate devolution.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) is absolutely right. A lot of these issues were trotted out in the 1998 devolution debates. I spent hours on the Benches in this House teasing out these points with Donald Dewar. We pointed out to the then Labour Government that they were not taking—to use a word that has buzzed around today, but which I have never liked—the holistic approach. They kept on talking about holistics, but no one was prepared to think through the overall consequences of the massive constitutional changes we were initiating.
In particular, this country has an unwritten constitution that is ultimately entirely dependent on sovereignty residing in this place. It is extremely simple and extremely subtle, but it breaks down extremely quickly once power starts to be diffused elsewhere.
Peter Grant
Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not understand that he has put his finger on one of the most fundamental differences between our nations? In my nation, the sovereignty of Parliament and the sovereignty of the monarch do not exist; the people are and always will be sovereign in Scotland.
Mr Grieve
No. I am afraid that distinction exists only in the mind of the hon. Gentleman. If I may say so, that is entirely illustrative of the sort of myth that illuminates the lives of Scottish nationalists, but has no relation to reality whatsoever. The Queen is the servant, through her coronation oath, of the citizens of this country, and we in this Parliament—and, indeed, Ministers—do our best to serve the Queen in the fulfilment of her oath. That serves the people just as adequately as any of the other rationalisations that the hon. Gentleman may have, so I will not hear any more of that, thank you very much.
Sir William Cash
I have already referred to the fact that I tried to resolve the West Lothian question by proposing amendments to Standing Orders. In 1998, I also proposed that the whole matter should be referred to a referendum in the whole of the United Kingdom, because we were all affected by it. Half the Conservative Members walked past the Whips to support me on that, but the Government would not of course accept it.
Mr Grieve
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I will come back to it, but I will now move on because I do not want to take up too much time.
To move from the general point to the particular one, I accept that what we are debating strikes me as imperfect, but I am afraid I happen to think that a lot of things we have done recently in respect of devolution are imperfect as well. I emphasise that I differ from my party on the vow, not because I think it is wrong to give more devolution to Scotland—there is a powerful argument for saying that Scotland should have more devolution than we are giving it—but because the process we have embarked on appears to me to be essentially incoherent. It is like a car driving along a road and lurching one way and then the other in a series of spins. I do not think that that is a productive way to operate in the long term, but we are where we are.
The proposed Standing Orders are essentially very modest—they really are. I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House listened about extending the period of debate and that the Procedure Committee will have an opportunity to look at them, but they are modest. They constitute about as small a shield to English susceptibilities as it is possible to devise. In my view, they will not in any significant way diminish the role of MPs as a collective group in this House.
Wayne David
What was the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s considered view of Sir William McKay’s proposals?
Mr Grieve
The McKay proposals were good, but they preceded the vow. Once we got to the point of further devolution, they started to look rather inadequate. That is precisely the problem.
Although these measures are not perfect, they meet my constituents’ needs. I have one major anxiety, which has been highlighted before, and it is over the process of certification by the Speaker. If we are moving down this road, it would be better to proceed by way of primary legislation, followed by a change to Standing Orders. There is a question over whether these measures are justiciable. I am perfectly familiar with article 9 of the Bill of Rights, but that does not mean that somebody will not have a go at doing it. In a Parliament where we are increasingly passing power out, to emphasise constantly our sovereignty and expect nobody to scrutinise the different arrangements that we are bringing about seems, in the long term, unrealistic.
That brings me to my final point. My view is that these measures can only be temporary. I am aware that there are other Members across the House who take the view that if we are to preserve the Union of the United Kingdom, we will have to take a much longer, harder and, I hope, more consensual—although that is often difficult to achieve—look at the way in which we conduct our affairs. As I put my Unionism absolutely at the forefront of my political life—I believe that is what my constituents want, too—I am prepared to consider major constitutional change, including moves towards a written constitution. In my judgment, that is probably the only way to provide a framework in which the highly complex and different needs of different parts of the United Kingdom can be addressed. That is not a popular theme because it touches on Parliament’s sovereignty, it certainly touches on article 9 of the Bill of Rights, and I do not for the life of me see how it could ever be done without making the constitution capable, ultimately, of being interpreted by a court. That raises equal problems, but I do not think that they are ones that, in the long term, can be ducked.
I believe that people in the United Kingdom—the evidence of this is overwhelming from the Scottish referendum last year—wish to operate and live together. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) was so right when he said that it is none of our business to put our personal needs, Parliament’s needs, the Scottish Parliament’s needs, the Welsh Assembly’s needs or, for that matter, the Northern Ireland Assembly’s needs before the needs of our citizens. We are here to respond to their concerns.
One thing that underpins my Unionism—this has become harder and harder to stick to over the years, but I have done so—is the belief that the interests of people in Wick, Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh and the hometown where my family originated, Hawick, must be every bit as relevant to me as those of my own constituents in Beaconsfield, and must continue to be so even if, as I pointed out earlier, I can no longer intervene on their behalf in the way that I did in the past. Once the Scottish National party starts to consider that, it will appreciate why some of its arguments against the proposals this evening show it in a rather poor light. It is the pot calling the kettle black in respect of comity within the United Kingdom.
The only solution is for those of us who have some goodwill in this matter—that includes SNP Members if they wish to exercise that goodwill—to participate together to create a new structure that will be lasting and enduring for the whole country.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this important debate on English votes for English laws, which—purely in the interests of brevity rather than hilarity—I will refer to throughout as EVEL.
I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not oppose the devolution of decisions that affect only the people of England and their elected representatives, provided the people of England wish such a power to be devolved. However, what is being proposed is exclusion rather than devolution. It is totally and entirely different from the Scottish situation. Rather than devolving power from this place to another legislative body—I would be happy to support that—the voices of Scottish MPs will be excluded on certain issues. That is likely to draw criticism not just from those in Scotland and Wales, whose MPs are disfranchised by this EVEL proposal, but by progressive individuals living in England who are delighted that this Parliament finally has a voice expressing their opinions.
In May, I was elected to the UK Parliament as an MP. As was pointed out by the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who is no longer in his place, I was elected in exactly the same way as MPs who represent English constituencies. In fact, I was elected with a larger share of the vote than 80% of English MPs. In this House, however, it is not the percentage of votes one receives that determines our place; it is the nation in which those votes were cast. This House prides itself on its democratic history, including the principle that however many votes a Member receives or whichever nation they represent, our vote counts the same as that of all the others when we troop through the Lobby. EVEL means that this will no longer be the case.
As an aside, I want to point out the lack of consistency in these EVEL proposals. As hon. Members have already said, during the last parliamentary Session one Bill was classed as Scotland-only. There appears to be no proposal to create a similar change in the rules to allow Scottish MPs to have a veto over legislation that does not concern or affect other parts of the UK but is reserved to this House. It is not difficult to imagine what would have happened to amendments to the Scotland Bill if a double majority had been required.
This major constitutional change is being made by amending the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. It is not a change in legislation: the UK Government propose simply to change the rules on debates and processes in the Chamber. As has been mentioned, these have been called back-of-the-fag-packet calculations. In fact, I think the sentence about “minor or consequential” points is justly badly drafted. The point relates to something else entirely—whether something is English or English and Welsh-only—but it is difficult to tell what it is supposed to mean. I would appreciate it if the Leader of the House looked at that sentence.
Thankfully, the Government have to a certain extent taken some Opposition concerns into account—in particular, about the haste of the process—and I hope that at least one Select Committee will be able to scrutinise the proposals before our next debate on this matter.
From the majority of the speeches of Conservative Members, we can see that there is a fundamental lack of understanding about the devolution settlement in Scotland and the ability of Westminster to influence our budgets. There is no recognition from the majority of Conservatives that decisions taken in England for England have a consequential effect on the people of Scotland and the budgets of the Holyrood Parliament.
The clarification that the estimates procedure will be exempted from EVEL is welcome, but it does not go far enough. In fact, it is probably smoke and mirrors. It is right that Scottish MPs should be able to vote on matters that have an impact on the Scottish Parliament’s budget. There is no opportunity to amend proposals during the estimates process—only an opportunity to vote for or against them—so Scottish MPs must have a say during initial decisions on legislation that will have a knock-on impact on overall departmental budgets and therefore a consequential impact on the Scottish budget.
Mr Grieve
I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making, but her argument is effectively that everything we debate here is relevant. The problem is that it is also the case that everything debated in the Scottish Parliament is relevant. The differentials in tuition fees and the different approaches to criminal justice are relevant, yet we do not have the opportunity to have any input. She has to bear it in mind that it is the reality of the United Kingdom that virtually every decision taken in each of the Parliaments and Assemblies around the country has a knock-on effect outside the immediate borders of that nation.
Kirsty Blackman
The way that the financial settlement works means that what happens in this place has a knock-on impact on how much the Scottish Parliament has to spend, but what happens in the Scottish Parliament does not have a knock-on impact on how much the Government have to spend in this place.
If, for example, the UK Government decided to pass legislation to privatise vast swathes of the NHS, which I am sure they would not do, the overall departmental spend for health would be reduced during the estimates process. However, the legislation that privatised the NHS would be considered under EVEL and there would be an EVEL veto. The resulting estimates, which the Leader of the House has confirmed cannot be amended, are generally not debated at length. That matter would be hugely relevant to Scottish MPs and the Scottish people. It would not just be a minor or tiny consequential thing, but would have a massive impact on the Scottish budget. It would therefore be very relevant and we must be included. That is one of the problems with the proposal.
Gavin Robinson
I must say that I was disappointed by some of the exchanges, particularly those involving the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart)—I am sorry that he is not here to hear me say this, because I would like to say it to him and perhaps to benefit from some interventions from him—and the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa).
I heard the hon. Member for South Leicestershire try to convince the House that this was a burning issue on the doorsteps. I will take the enthusiasm of his position at face value, but I am a little miffed if English votes for English laws was the biggest issue raised during a parliamentary election. The hon. Gentleman also said that there was no appetite for an English Parliament in those discussions. I must say that he spent an awful long time talking about these complex constitutional issues at individual doors; I think he might have canvassed about four homes over the course of the parliamentary election period. If it is true that there is no appetite for an English Parliament among English voters, it is also true that there is no need for this change to Standing Orders.
In my view, the Conservative Government are pushing forward with a proposal that they thought they would need to rely on in either a minority Government or a coalition Government. England makes up 85% of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We have heard that. The Government say that the people of England were asking for this at the election, but the people of England got the Government they wanted while the people of the United Kingdom did not. Nobody across the United Kingdom had the opportunity to consider this issue. Other areas of the United Kingdom, whether that means Scotland, Wales or my home of Northern Ireland, did not express a view that they wanted this from their Government.
The measure is not needed. With 85% of this United Kingdom in England, their votes are already here. When we consider this issue over the course of history since the second world war, we realise that only once in 1964 and for a couple of years from 1974 would it ever have been an issue. It is not. The Government are proposing a solution for a problem that I do not believe they are faced with. In doing so, they are creating not just many more issues and problems in this House but more opportunities for those who do not believe that we are all in it together.
Mr Grieve
I am listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has to say. I can see that he can make an argument against the change to Standing Orders. As I said in my own speech, I can see why that might be troubling. However, the background issue of how we organise ourselves within the United Kingdom and the structures we should have that respect the individual component parts and do justice to English identity is not going away, and I do not think that it is artificial.
Gavin Robinson
I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his intervention. I was impressed and encouraged by some of the remarks that were made.
I started my speech this evening by asking the Leader of the House to convince me that I should not be fearful of this proposal, to show me that he does not believe in two tiers of MPs by removing the second tier that we already have, and to go some way to convince me as a Northern Ireland Unionist that if votes come up that are reserved because of particular Northern Ireland issues—parading was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson)—Northern Ireland will be able to have its own say. That could be an extension of the principle, but it is the same principle. If the Government were prepared to give me the same opportunity that they are seeking for themselves, I might be prepared to consider the issue further.
Scotland’s representatives will make exactly the same request: will there be Scottish votes for Scottish laws that are reserved to this House? The London Assembly has also been mentioned. Non-London MPs have the opportunity to vote on London issues, but London MPs cannot vote on issues that have been devolved to the administrative Assembly. Where does the principle end? I would like a response to those issues.
Graham Jones
It would be nice to have that information. It is not present at the minute, but I am glad that the Minister is at least having a look at it. Perhaps the explanation she gives will be unsatisfactory. She may have just made some notes and intends to put it in her speech just because someone has raised it, reinforcing the fact that this is a complete mess. Amendments that have consequentials might go before an English-only Committee. What happens then? I leave that with the Minister and will be interested to hear what she has to say.
Finally, the Government do not seem to appreciate that if we end up in a situation where there is an English Conservative majority but a Unionist Labour majority, legislation could be stifled. The Government may say that there is a resolution to the problem or that that is how this place operates in our democracy. The Minister should be mindful of the fact that if the problems are not resolved, regions such as mine in the north of England will quickly get fed up with voting for a Labour Government, getting a Labour Government but not being able to pass Labour legislation because it is blocked by English Conservative MPs.
English Votes on English Laws
Dominic Grieve Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Ms Eagle
It is terribly kind of the hon. Gentleman to give us that assurance, but we need to base changes to our constitution on more than that.
The process the Government have chosen to use to create EVEL goes against every precedent. Substantial constitutional changes should be implemented by Acts of Parliament and examined in both Houses. They should not be rushed through in changes to Standing Orders. Changes to Commons Standing Orders cannot be challenged in the courts because of article 9 of the Bill of Rights, nor can they be subject to proper, open scrutiny in both Houses of Parliament. They are clearly not suitable for introducing a de facto English Parliament within the existing Union Parliament, as the Government have proposed.
All major constitutional changes, from the supremacy of the Commons in the Parliament Acts through to our membership of the European Union and the devolution process, have been introduced by Acts of Parliament—the Parliament Act 1911, the Parliament Act 1949, the European Communities Act 1972, the Human Rights Act 1998, the Government of Wales Act 1998, the Scotland Act 1998 and the Greater London Authority Act 1999. Each of those Acts was properly scrutinised over a period of time, with days of debates in both Houses and the proper consideration of amendments. Many were preceded by Green Papers, White Papers and a thorough debate in the country. Some could only be commenced after a referendum had been won. All those measures are subject to interpretation in the courts. Under the Government’s proposals, the introduction of English votes for English laws would not be.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
The hon. Lady is of course right in reading that list, but I say to her gently that the point we are at today is the logical consequence of the way in which devolution was carried out. The logical consequence at its end is that, if we wish to reform the structures of this House in the way she wants, we need a written constitution and a completely different basis on which we are to operate. That was one of the things that those on the Labour Front Bench at the time said persistently they did not wish to see happen. Bringing forward measures to change these matters by Standing Orders is the only way to honour the commitment made by those on the Labour Treasury Bench at the time.
Ms Eagle
The right hon. and learned Gentleman has perhaps not read the manifesto on which Labour fought the election, but it said we wanted a constitutional convention. The time is right to have a much closer and more holistic look at what is happening in the House of Lords and in the devolved Parliaments to see where we have ended up. That is our current policy.
No previous changes to Standing Orders have contained such substantial constitutional change. I have already dealt with why this is a lamentable precedent.
Pete Wishart
When it comes to constitutional reform, the engine for change in Scotland is the Scottish National party. Every time we see a leap forward for the Scottish Parliament, an increase in powers or an independence referendum, it is based on the votes of the Scottish people and their representatives, such as my hon. Friends who are with us today. Let us not try to pretend that this is anything other than an attempt to create an English Parliament in the House of Commons, which is unacceptable to the rest of the people in the United Kingdom. I have a great deal of sympathy with English Members. I know of their unhappiness, because we hear about it again and again. English Members are so unhappy about the unfairness of it—about these evil, dreadful Scottish MPs who come down here and vote on their legislation—but if they want an English Parliament, they must go and do the work.
Mr Grieve
I certainly do not think that the presence of members of the hon. Gentleman’s party in the House is an evil presence. They have a legitimate reason to be heard and to make their points. However, the hon. Gentleman seems to me to be arguing that we should not be taking the current Scottish legislation through Parliament at all, and that we should be having a national constitutional convention. We are responding to the vow, which he said was absolute, but I must gently point out that there was also a vow to the electorate in England and Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom that we would legislate to change the Standing Orders of the House. That, surely, encapsulates part of the problem. It is a bit difficult for the hon. Gentleman to come and argue against it when he asks for exactly the same position for the purpose of his own agenda.
Pete Wishart
What the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said in his rather lengthy intervention is partly right. What we have in this House, and what we have in this nation, is an issue and a difficulty. It is called “asymmetric UK”, although Members may prefer to call it “asymmetric Britain”, and what it has led to is our own unhappiness. We agreed to—we voted for—a particular dynamic or trajectory of Scottish politics. We wanted to see further powers for our Parliament. That has been turned down by English Members, so we are unhappy. I sense that my Welsh colleagues are unhappy as well. In a debate last week, I heard them raise some of the cross-border aspects of what is being suggested. I know, because we are hearing it non-stop, that English Members are unhappy, and they are probably right to be unhappy. I know that they are furious about Scottish Members. How dare we come down and vote on their precious public services? However, there is a solution: it is called federalism, and it is what we thought we were voting for last year. What we were promised was as close as possible to federalism, or to home rule.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate, which was badly needed. I do not want to rehearse all the issues that have been raised about how we got ourselves to this position, but it seems to me that it was inherent in the devolution settlement of 1998 that the questions we are now discussing would have to be addressed. The truth is that we have ducked them consistently and for a long period. Indeed, we have done more than that and have created over time legislation that is often incoherent and difficult to understand, particularly in the Welsh context of devolution, and legislation that did not meet the needs.
The problem we now have is that there is a ghost in the room as well. We will have to move towards using Standing Orders because we do not wish to have a measure carried out in this Chamber through the ordinary legislative process, which is justiciable. That raises the whole question of whether we are moving inevitably towards a written constitution. The House has consistently set itself against that, but we are asking our unwritten constitution to stretch more and more to respond to complexities for which it was never designed. I do not believe that it will in the long term be able to cope. However, that is the reality of our position and it requires a sea change in opinion in this House if we are ever to get ourselves through it. It also requires good will. Forgive my having to say this again to SNP members, but one of the problems with these debates is that the question of their good will towards the United Kingdom in general is rather in doubt and for that reason, achieving a sensible dialogue is made much more difficult.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
What does my right hon. and learned Friend think cannot be achieved by an Act of Parliament that can only be achieved by a written constitution in this regard?
Mr Grieve
My hon. Friend will forgive me, but I am not sure that I entirely follow his point. My point was that in terms of the process of this House, an Act of Parliament will be justiciable, which is why it is not the route that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House wishes to take.
Mr Grieve
I would like to make progress. I know that the hon. Gentleman is interested in this question, but I want to get on to my main points.
My concern, and this is why I raised it yesterday, is that the only way in which my party will honour its vow to the electorate is by proceeding by way of amending Standing Orders. We certainly should not underestimate the enormity of that change. It is a profound change and needs to be properly debated. At the moment, I have serious anxieties about whether there is time available to carry out that scrutiny. I know that the Government have set aside a day next week, but it does not seem to me that that allows the opportunity at present to table the necessary amendments, to consider the 22 clauses and changes one by one so that Members of this House can make an informed assessment of whether they want to support some and not others, and to have the level of debate that will be required if this is to be implemented.
The point has been rightly made about the Barnett consequentials. I have said on previous occasions that I fully accept that, in view of how we carry out our funding in the United Kingdom, many measures that might appear only to affect England and Wales have a consequence north of the border and a legitimate interest for Scottish Members to vote on. I wish to see that preserved. I happen to think that the Barnett formula is due for review and well past its sell-by date. I very much regret that, following the referendum last year, we seem to have reaffirmed something which even a Committee of the Scottish Parliament had indicated was becoming increasingly unworkable and not in anybody’s—including Scotland’s—interests.
But that is where we are. We have to work with what we have got. If we are to proceed, the changes to those Standing Orders must be properly scrutinised, and we must do it in a way that commands confidence both here and among the public. I have to say to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that I do not think we are there. I hope very much that before the close of today we will hear that sufficient time is to be allocated to do justice to these proposals. We can then have a proper debate and reach outcomes which, though they may be far from perfect—I acknowledge that—nevertheless are not so imperfect that I feel rather ashamed of our having perpetrated them. I very much hope that we will take the opportunity in today’s debate to ensure that we can have that proper debate next week.
English Votes on English Laws
Dominic Grieve Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
The people of Scotland voted for the Union, and we are delivering more powers for the Scottish Parliament so that we can strengthen the Union. That is what we committed ourselves to doing in our manifesto, and it is what the whole House agreed on before the general election. We are fulfilling our promise, which is the right thing to do.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
The point has been fairly made that, because of the funding system we have in the UK, many decisions that might appear solely to have an impact on England can have a UK effect, but my understanding of what my right hon. Friend was saying was that the Government fully understood that and that it would be recognised in the structures put in place. If that is the case, I have to say I find some of the arguments being advanced by the SNP to be rather synthetic. I have a great interest in all sorts of subjects, including wind farms in the Monadhliath mountains, but I have to recognise that they are not ones that I can pursue as a Member of Parliament in this Chamber.
Chris Grayling
The point that SNP Members seem to have failed to take on board is that no measure will be able to pass through this House without the consent of the whole House, and the whole House includes Members of Parliament from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That is how it is today; that is how it will continue. It is absolutely right and proper that that should be the case. They will continue to vote in all the Divisions they vote in at the moment. They will speak in the debates and ask all their questions. This does not create a second tier of Members of Parliament. It actually addresses the existing West Lothian question, which creates a division in competence between different Members of Parliament.
Devolution (Scotland Referendum)
Dominic Grieve Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
When one looks at Welsh devolution, is not one problem that the legislation has been so badly drafted that it is unclear what has been devolved and what has been reserved? Does that highlight the fact that, if we are to carry out a proper revision of our constitutional arrangements, we must look at the totality of them, while at the same time honouring the commitment we have made in Scotland?
Mr Hague
There is a good case for that. The structure of the devolution settlement in Wales is an important matter for our consideration, particularly as the Silk commission recommended a move to a reserved powers model in its part II report, partly for the reasons that my right hon. and learned Friend gives. It will fall to the next Parliament to introduce legislation to make that change, but my right hon. Friend the Wales Secretary has made it clear that he wants to hear views from across the political spectrum in Wales. He has invited the leaders of the Welsh parties to discuss the way forward, and I believe he held a productive meeting yesterday. As he has announced, the first step in giving further devolution to Wales is to amend the Wales Bill by scrapping the lockstep and allowing the Welsh Assembly the power to vary income tax rates. The new income tax powers are a tool to help the Welsh economy potentially to become more dynamic and to make the Government in Wales more accountable. If used correctly, we hope they can boost economic growth, meaning more people in Wales in jobs and enjoying a better standard of living.
Sadiq Khan
I am trying my best—as did the Leader of the House—to follow the rational plan and structure of the speech, but I shall return to the hon. and learned Gentleman’s question in a few moments.
I am proud of Labour’s record on constitutional reform. We can justifiably claim to be the party of constitutional reform, although it was not plain sailing. We learned from our experiences. We know a thing or two about what works and what does not work. We know about the importance of cross-party consensus to the success of constitutional change. The Leader of the House, as leader of the Conservative party, opposed the removal of any of the hereditary peers. We worked with him, and there are still 92 left, although we hope that they too will be gone soon. We learned from things that did not work, such as the failed referendum on a regional assembly in the north-east of England. We also know that there is unfinished business, most notably in regard to House of Lords reform.
Sadiq Khan
Let me make some progress first. I will give way to the right hon. and learned Gentleman shortly, because he has been very patient.
We have long known that devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would have an impact on England, and would require a response to help to address the imbalances in our constitution. We can call it the West Lothian question or the English question—we can call it whatever we want—but there is undoubtedly an issue, and it will need to be addressed. It is not a new issue; it was around in the 1880s during the Gladstone Home Rule debates, in the 1960s when Home Rule in Northern Ireland was debated, and in the 1970s. However, we need to address the present-day declining trust in Westminster, and the widespread feeling of disempowerment.
Mr Grieve
I participated in the debates on devolution in the late 1990s, and the West Lothian question was discussed then. As the right hon. Gentleman will remember, Lord Irvine said that the best solution to the West Lothian question was not to ask it. In fact, one of the reasons the devolution settlement has not worked overall—and this applies throughout the United Kingdom—is that the right hon. Gentleman’s party, when in government, consistently refused to look at the total picture. The question now is whether, in opposition, his party will be willing to face up to the consequences, and try to create something that will command support throughout our country. We on this side of the House are prepared to do the work, but it seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman is avoiding that question.
Sadiq Khan
I have a huge amount of respect for the former Attorney-General, but I am afraid that it is inconsistent to accuse us on the one hand of failing to look at the total picture and on the other hand to suggest a Westminster stitch-up.
Clearly, part of the solution is greater devolution within England, and that has been at the centre of Labour’s policy review: reversing a century of centralisation with radical plans to devolve power and responsibility downwards.
Select Committee on Governance of the House
Dominic Grieve Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I support the motion, and I support the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) being the Chairman of the Committee—and not just because he rather surprisingly said very nice things about me in his excellent book.
I am not really known for being an establishment man, and I signed the motion of no confidence in the previous Speaker, so I am not afraid to put my head above the parapet when the need arises. I did not vote for the current Speaker, either. Usually in elections in which there is a secret ballot, the custom is to go around telling all the candidates that we will vote for them, and then choose one to actually vote for. Before the election of the current Speaker, I decided to go and see him and sat down with him for an hour to tell him all the reasons why I was not going to vote for him.
I certainly do not agree with everything that Mr Speaker does, and I guess I do not particularly agree with the decision on this particular appointment or some of the process around it, which was set out very well by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley). However, for some of my colleagues to use this issue as a Trojan horse to pursue a personal vendetta against the Speaker carries the danger of making them look absolutely ridiculous. I urge them to end that custom now, because it is not getting us very far.
Those who were elected only in 2010 may be forgiven for thinking that the current Speaker is not particularly to their taste—perhaps they have some gripe with him— because they have no one to benchmark him against. Anybody who was in the previous Parliament should know better. Compared with this Speaker, the previous one was an absolute disgrace. In my opinion we do not know how lucky we are to have the current Speaker, despite any faults that he may have, and anyone who uses this issue as an excuse to go after him does not know what they are talking about.
As for the actual role, until this evening I had been rather disappointed by the lack of noise, so to speak, from people on the panel to claim credit for the decision they took. The responsibility seemed to be left to the Speaker, and nobody else on the panel appeared willing to put their head above the parapet and say that it was also their decision. They appeared quite happy to allow all the custard pies to be thrown at the Speaker, rather than taking some of the hits themselves.
As others have said, I think the role should be divided, and I very much agree with the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) who said that two very different skill sets are required for the two parts of the role. It will always be likely that someone who has the skill set to be a good Clerk may not necessarily have the skill set to be a good chief executive, and vice versa. That seems to me perfectly obvious. That does not mean that some people cannot do the joint roles well. We were very lucky to have in Sir Robert Rogers someone who had the charisma and ability to combine those roles particularly well. However, that should not change the fact that on the whole, more often than not we will not find somebody with that combined skill set, which is why I think the role should be changed. I suspect that the panel and the Speaker made the mistake of picking the person they thought would make the best chief executive, and that if they had chosen the person who they thought would make the best Clerk, we would not be in this situation today. The mood of the House is that the Clerk’s role is more important than that of the chief executive, and that should be the primary point.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I intervene only because I had to do a lot of co-operating with the previous Clerk, Sir Robert Rogers, in my capacity as Attorney-General, and I assure the House that the legal knowledge and skills that are required of the Clerk of the House fully justify the salary. It is an immensely complex task, and the House must understand that. At the end of the day, it is not dry; it is what makes this place work or cease to function completely.
Philip Davies
I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend, and given how expert the legal knowledge needs to be, it seems that he was putting in a bid to do the job himself, with his expert legal knowledge.
I will conclude where I started. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) on securing the debate. I think that the way forward in the motion is correct, and there is no one better than the right hon. Member for Blackburn to lead the Committee. I had the privilege of serving on the Modernisation Committee under his chairmanship during the last Parliament—I think I was only put on that Committee, along with Sir Nicholas Winterton, because I hated any modernisation. The right hon. Gentleman is the right man to Chair this Committee, and I hope it comes to the conclusion that the role should be divided. I hope that my colleagues will stop using this issue as a Trojan horse to attack a Speaker who we may not always agree with, but who on the whole is doing a very good job.