European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Dominic Grieve and Philip Davies

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Grieve]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Philip Davies]

My right hon. and learned Friend did not give way, and I am not going to give way either because time is limited. Parliament cannot vote to reverse the decision of the referendum. People outside this House need to know very clearly today that—

HS2 Funding Referendum Bill

Debate between Dominic Grieve and Philip Davies

Friday 23rd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Grieve]

I agree entirely. It would be to the Government’s political advantage to reveal as much information as possible about how the decision making process took place. Of course, I am mindful of the rule that Ministers must have the possibility of confidentiality so that they can make informed decisions. I am very respectful of that; my time as Attorney-General made me understand how important it is, and the matter is very much for our ministerial colleagues to determine. However, my right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Wherever possible, documents should be put forward. Even a document that might appear disadvantageous to people would at least have the merit of their being able to explain why, notwithstanding it, they had changed their minds. To come back to the Bill, that is exactly why the public debate at the moment is not adequate for the magnitude of the project that the Government have been creating.

[Philip Davies]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the other advantage of the Bill would be to tease out how much support the project has in the north of England? Projects such as this are often proposed by people down south pretending that they care about the north, when all that actually happens is that those in the north realise how out of touch those people are with the north. If we were to have a referendum, we would know once and for all how popular the scheme was in the north and whether it was as popular as people in the south seem to think it is—or as unpopular as I seem to think it is, from speaking to my constituents.

[Mr Grieve]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I have no idea how widespread the support for the project is in the north of England; anecdotally, there is a suggestion that it is much less than has been suggested. Most referendums have regional or local results, which would be a telling way of showing whether the enormous expenditure is the best way of building better infrastructure for this country in future.

Whoever speaks on this matter in the House will have no difficulty in agreeing on the benefits of sound infrastructure; travelling on the London underground, one can see the need for investment. I also entirely accept—I make the point again—that infrastructure development cannot take place without some adverse environmental consequences. We have to do our best to minimise those, and one of my anxieties is that I am not sure that we have really considered that issue properly in the context of this project. However, I accept that there are those consequences. I am a realist, but I worry about this project, which is why I think a referendum would be so desirable.

I shall now bring my remarks to a close. I must apologise to the House, and above all to my right hon. Friend the Minister. There have been changes to the Order Paper, and unless I fail in my duties to my constituents in other respects, in a way that would be difficult for me, I will not be able to remain to hear the end of this debate.

Select Committee on Governance of the House

Debate between Dominic Grieve and Philip Davies

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dominic Grieve and Philip Davies

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Many people, not just victims of crime, have concerns about the performance of public prosecutors in court. Will the Attorney-General set out what inspections are made of public prosecutors in court and how many unannounced visits are made in order to assess the performance of the CPS prosecutors?

[The Attorney-General]

The Crown prosecutors who appear in court as advocates are monitored. Indeed, it is a rather more rigorous monitoring process than the one available, for example, for the independent Bar that does their work. I would be happy to write to my hon. Friend with further details of how this monitoring is carried out. The previous Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, made a very particular point in the first year that I was working with him in carrying out an extensive review of the performance of Crown prosecutors. This is monitored and it is also the subject of inspections by the Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate. There are published reports on the quality of the advocacy being delivered.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dominic Grieve and Philip Davies

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I am not going to comment on an individual case. I am quite satisfied that, in so far as I have been able to have any role in this matter, I have acted properly. In so far as it is a matter of where the law needs to be changed, that is for this House to decide.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May I urge the Attorney-General to work with the Lord Chancellor to extend the period in which an appeal can be made against an unduly lenient sentence from the current 28 days? Could he also give a word of encouragement to campaigners such as the excellent Families Fighting for Justice who claim it would make a big difference to victims of the most serious offences?

[The Attorney-General]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Certainly, the question of the time limit will be looked at by my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor. I am certainly open to suggestions, although it is right to say that if we have a new time limit there will always be the risk that it will also be exceeded in some cases. It is important that cases should be reviewed quickly. In some cases the defendant/offender may not have been given a custodial sentence, and to have a long period of delay before a custodial sentence is then imposed is clearly undesirable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dominic Grieve and Philip Davies

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure that we are now much better informed, but anybody would think that these lawyers are paid by the word.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

3. How many sentences he has asked the Court of Appeal to review because they appear to be unduly lenient since May 2010; and in what proportion of those cases the sentence was subsequently increased.

[The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)]

The Attorney-General’s Office records show that from 10 May 2010 to 6 July 2012 the Solicitor-General and I have referred the sentences of 188 offenders from 135 separate Crown Court cases to the Court of Appeal. One of those offenders’ sentences has yet to be considered. Of 187 individual sentences that have been considered since May 2010, the Court considered 87% to be unduly lenient and increased the sentences of 155—or 83%—of them. Annual statistics are published on my Department’s website, and the 2011 figures were published last week.

[Philip Davies]

May I warmly congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on taking forward these unduly lenient cases and making sure that proper sentences are handed out? However, can he tell us what remedial action is taken against the lily-livered, wet, soft, liberal judges who hand out these unduly lenient sentences in the first place to make sure that this does not happen again?

[The Attorney-General]

I am afraid that I do not entirely agree with my hon. Friend’s basic premise. Just to get the position in perspective, I should say that 95,795 sentences were passed in the Crown Court in 2011, and we had referred to us in that period some 377 requests to reconsider sentences. Many of those requests were in fact wrong, and the total number we referred reflects the sorts of cases that we identify where a mistake has been made. I have to say to him that I am afraid that in human affairs such mistakes will always be made, which is precisely why we have the mechanism we have got to try to ensure that they are corrected.

Injunctions

Debate between Dominic Grieve and Philip Davies

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Surely, we cannot have a situation in which celebrities court positive publicity to gain sponsorship and other endorsements and then rush to take out super-injunctions when negative publicity comes their way. There are not many cases of people taking out injunctions regarding positive publicity. Does the Attorney-General therefore agree that what we do not need are more privacy laws, of which we seem to have plenty at the moment, and that we need freedom-of-speech and freedom-of-the-press laws?

[The Attorney-General]

May I say to my hon. Friend that our laws already provide very substantial protection for the freedom of the press? The question arises as to how a balance should be struck. Even before the operation of the Human Rights Act, the power of the courts to protect the vulnerable and children, for example, was well established in our law. In that sense it is not a novelty. That balance is always going to be a subject of legitimate debate and I hope that, as a result of the steps that the Government are taking, that debate will take place.