Appointment of the Chair of the National Audit Office
Edward Leigh Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I support the motion moved by the Prime Minister. I remember that his predecessor was a bit cross about having to come to this rather quiet little affair, with all his other very heavy responsibilities, especially as he had already appointed the previous Comptroller and Auditor General as an acting Comptroller and Auditor General.
It is worth emphasising that the reason it is important that the Prime Minister is here is that this is the one job—in fact, there are two jobs, the Comptroller and Auditor General and the chair of the National Audit Office—that is not in the sole gift of the Prime Minister. At least there is one job he does not appoint; I am sure that he is prepared to concede this one. It is very important that he is not in sole control and that he appoints the heads of both these bodies—the chairman of the NAO and the CAG—with the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. By definition, my right hon. Friend is a member of the Government—that is obvious—and, by changing the rules of this House to create a unique rule, we have ensured that the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee is always a member of the Opposition. The two people who run the National Audit Office are therefore appointed on a genuinely all-party basis. That is essential.
Of course, I welcome this sealing of the appointment of Sir Andrew. I could hardly say anything else, as I appointed him in the first place. He is a superbly well qualified person for this job. The reason we created the new role of chairman of the board—I worked with Alan Williams, the former Father of the House, to whom, once again, I pay tribute for his many long years of service to this House—was that previously the Comptroller and Auditor General was, in effect, a dictator. He had sole control of the organisation; there was no board, and none of his judgments should be questioned. It is quite right that when the CAG looks at the accounts of Government— when he is holding the Government to account—he should be completely independent and act on his own, and nobody must be able to gainsay him. He must be able to look into every filing cabinet, summon every civil servant, and expose every scandal. However, in terms of running a modern organisation like the National Audit Office, it was right that we should modernise, move with the times, and create a proper board that could oversee the organisation as opposed to the policy, and that is what we did with the appointment of Sir Andrew. He is a good candidate and I welcome his appointment.
Oral Answers to Questions
Edward Leigh Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
2. What recent discussions he has had on changes to the law on succession to the throne; and if he will make a statement.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced on 28 October, the 16 Commonwealth realms have agreed in principle that we should modernise the Act of Settlement with regard to the rules of royal succession. That means that if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were to have a first-born daughter, she would eventually become Queen of our country. In addition, we will remove the barrier to those who marry Catholics retaining their position in the line of succession, thus repealing an explicit and unique discrimination against the Roman Catholic religion.
Mr Leigh
After many years of campaigning, I thank the Government most warmly for finally grasping the nettle and removing this unique discrimination against Catholics. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree, however, that this issue and the wider issues have now moved beyond statute? The fact is that the monarch gave up appointing Anglican bishops in the 18th century, and the Prime Minister has recently given up that power. In the future, can we ever prevent anyone from holding a post that they are born into, simply because of their religion or beliefs?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I have explained, this is a significant step. I understand that there is a perfectly legitimate debate to be had about whether there should be other reforms, but all the Commonwealth realms must move as a convoy on this. We must all translate it into exactly the same legislation, which is what we will be working on in the months ahead. It is important to welcome this step, as my hon. Friend has done. It removes a unique discrimination against people of the Roman Catholic religion, and we must ensure that we implement it in full.
G20
Edward Leigh Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady makes an important point, but it is not necessarily fair to lump all those countries together. Some of them, such as Italy, have huge deficits in terms of the ratio of debt to GDP, but have managed to compete within the single currency, so I am not sure that the way in which she groups those countries together is entirely fair. The important role of the IMF is not to support a currency system, not to support the eurozone, and not to invest into a bail-out fund. The IMF has to be there for countries in distress. That is why everyone in the House supported, for instance, the IMF programme that went into Ireland. The IMF went in as a partner of other countries, but it did go in. If she turns her question round the other way, it would be extraordinary, would it not, to say to eurozone countries, “You are shareholders in the IMF, you contributed to the IMF, but when you’re in distress you can’t get any money from the IMF at all”? That would be an extraordinary position—but it is one that seems to have the support of those on the Labour Front Bench.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Has not the avoidance of a concentration of political and economic power on the continent been a cardinal feature of British foreign policy for 300 years? How then is it in our interests to facilitate the creation of a single fiscal and monetary union that will have enormous power over us, but over which we will have very little influence?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend asks a question with a broad historical sweep. We are suffering at the moment from a single currency that we are not a member of, but that has some serious structural faults. It is in our interests that those faults are resolved, and one way of helping to do that would be to have a greater pooling of fiscal sovereignty among the members of the single currency. I always felt that that was necessary and was going to happen, which is one reason why I never supported the single currency. However, I do not think that we can stick happily with the status quo when the single currency is having a chilling effect on our economy, through the crisis, and not seek some sort of resolution.
Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill
Edward Leigh Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
So in reality these amendments are not really important in the hon. Lady’s estimation; she is simply intent on wrecking this Bill by any means possible. That is the reality, is it not?
Helen Goodman
I am not intent on wrecking the Bill; I am intent on opposing it, which is not quite the same thing.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
That is for the Chair to decide, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. I would point out that I am allowing a little bit of latitude and, in fairness, the hon. Lady has been brought back to the point, to which, in general, she is sticking at the moment. I will decide from the Chair how far we go.
Mr Leigh
This is an extraordinarily narrow amendment to what is a tentative, but worthwhile, Bill. Therefore, on the point the Minister is making now, will he undertake to bring in real legislation once and for all to deal with the West Lothian question, so that Scottish MPs do not vote on English business?
Mr Harper
I was listening very carefully at the beginning of the debate, and when my hon. Friend intervened on the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, he referred to her amendments as technical amendments. She concurred, but they are not technical amendments at all as they would radically change the nature of the Bill, in that it would apply no longer only to draft legislation, but to all legislation presented in the House. They are not technical amendments at all, therefore, as they fundamentally reshape the nature of the Bill. I am not surprised that my hon. Friend, who has only had a limited opportunity to study the Bill, said that they were merely technical amendments, but I am a little surprised that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland concurred, because I would have expected her to be able to see that they are significant and broad ranging.
Mr Harper
You are always very quick to keep Members in order, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I was about to resist the temptation offered by my hon. Friend and instead ask him if he would permit me to come back to the point. I do not have to ask him now as you have instructed me not to address it now. We touched on this point in the written statement I tabled yesterday, and I will flesh it out on Third Reading.
Returning to the points the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife made on the amendments, we will not support them because they widen the scope of the Bill significantly and are therefore not just technical in nature. It is helpful that the Opposition have tabled them, because they have demonstrated, as I started to say, why this legislative approach is likely not to be the solution to the West Lothian question—this was the point suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh). If the West Lothian question is about how this House legislates, any solution will probably have to be carried out through Standing Orders so that this House remains in control of it rather than the courts being permitted to start interfering, which is the last thing we want.
Having dealt with the amendments as a whole, let me turn now, briefly, to amendment 6, which defines legislation as both primary and secondary legislation. It is worth making the point that there is no need to include secondary legislation because it is made by virtue of the powers given to Ministers in primary legislation.
Mr Leigh
This is a very important point. If I understand it rightly, the Minister seems to be saying that the West Lothian question cannot be dealt with by legislation because that would be subject to interference by the courts, and that it should be dealt with by Standing Orders. That is where we are going now, is it? The Minister is speaking on behalf of the Government on this incredibly important issue. Are we moving towards a process by which the Government will move a motion through the House to amend Standing Orders to deal with the West Lothian question? Is that what he is saying?
Mr Harper
No, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that it is a complex matter and I shall say a little more on Third Reading, when I am permitted, about the commission. I am simply saying that a statutory solution is unlikely to work because if a statutory solution were to touch on the legislative process and legislation, which is what Members are interested in, as opposed to draft legislation, it would open up the proceedings of this House to the courts—this is exactly why my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire wisely kept the scope of her Bill to draft legislation. That is not something that Members want to do and if we proposed to do that, I am sure that the Clerk of the House would give evidence to the Committees of this House to point out the great risks of that approach, as has happened before. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough is in danger of jumping forward, and I suspect we can have a little more debate on this matter on Third Reading without my risking the danger of being ruled out of order.
On amendment 6, as I was saying, secondary legislation can have only the same territorial extent as the powers set out in primary legislation, so that aspect of the amendment is not really necessary. Amendments 8 and 14 are fairly minor in detail so I do not propose to refer to them.
Overall, the amendments are not necessary. It is worth discussing one thing, however, because it is relevant to the amendments. The amendments widen the scope of the Bill to cover legislation and I want briefly to remind Members—this was touched on, briefly, by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, and I will not dwell too long on individual Bills as you will rule me out of order, Mr Deputy Speaker—that when Ministers publish legislation they already have accompanying provisions on extent. We set out in the territorial extent clauses in the legislation which clauses and schedules apply to which legal jurisdiction. There is also a territorial extent section in the explanatory notes that accompany all Bills that describes the extent provisions in more detail in a more narrative form, explaining which parts apply to each part of the United Kingdom. If Bills have an effect on finances and Barnett consequentials, those are set out when legislation is put before the House.
So that Members have a better idea, let me give one or two short examples. The Health and Social Care Bill had a fairly detailed territorial extent clause. The default position was that the Bill extended to England and Wales, but certain parts of the Bill extended to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, some to England and Wales and Northern Ireland, and some to England and Wales and Scotland. There was more detail in the explanatory notes, which set out which parts of the Bill they were. For example, part 2 of the Bill abolished the Health Protection Agency, a body with a UK-wide remit, so those clauses were UK-wide. Others referred to special administration procedures that were UK-wide. The clause is legal and technical but describes in some detail how the Bill applies to each part of the United Kingdom.
As the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said, the reason he and his colleagues are able to consider legislation and make a decision about which ones they chose to speak and vote on is that they can look at the territorial extent clauses and make that judgment.
Harriett Baldwin
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that nothing is further from my intention than to revisit the regional question, which was so resoundingly defeated by the voters of the north-east as a complete white elephant. I am talking about England—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands what we mean by England—and I am talking about issues that increasingly come before this Chamber that refer just to England.
I want to thank colleagues, the Minister and those who worked so hard on the Bill in Committee for allowing us to reach the stage in the debate where I can reiterate what the Bill does. It essentially does three things. In developing those three things, it has drawn on the work of those much wiser, more experienced and more eminent than myself. I am a mere new Member of the House, so I was able to benefit from learning about the recommendations that have come through a couple of sources. Let me start by reading from the recommendations of the Justice Committee in the previous Parliament.
In 2009, the Justice Committee prepared a report called “Devolution: A Decade On”. In its conclusions and recommendations, it said:
“The question of whether England-only legislation can be more clearly demarcated from other legislation has to be resolved if any scheme of English votes for English laws is to work.”
Mr Leigh
I do not understand what the problem is. Why should there be any difficulty for the Government in recreating our old Standing Orders to allow us to demarcate legislation as English? We used to do it with Scottish legislation; why can we not do it with English legislation? It could be done in five minutes.
Harriett Baldwin
My hon. Friend makes a perfectly valid point, but I will speak about some of the other recommendations of the Justice Committee, which are relevant to some of the other clauses in my Bill:
“Even if legislation could be more clearly distinguished, the current system of territorial financing in the UK post-devolution means that the levels of public finance decided for England determine levels of resource allocation to Scotland and Wales. While we agree that the system could be changed in order to remove this effect, such a change would be a necessary prerequisite”.
I have taken a slightly different approach in this piece of legislation, which is to spell out on the face of the draft legislation what impact the Government think it might have on the Barnett formula and any successor formula. That would allow hon. Members who represent the Scottish National party to look at the legislation and reassure themselves, for example if there were no financial consequences, that they could have their hand strengthened in some way in their practice—which was mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart)—of not voting on legislation that does not affect their constituents.
Thomas Docherty
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I suspect that Mr Fraser would like to have that debate. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire is a sensible man—on occasion he is a Dunfermline Athletic fan, and he played in a half-decent band, so he has occasional good judgment—but I disagree with him and Mr Fraser, because Scottish Conservatives, as such, now believe in full fiscal autonomy, it would appear. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) is absolutely right: under that proposal, there would be separate Budgets from the Chancellor for those measures that apply to Scotland only, and those that apply to the rest of the United Kingdom.
The hon. Member for West Worcestershire talked about her great desire, which I think is genuine, to have decisions made at the lowest level of government. I notice—I went out and checked—that in proceedings on the Scotland Bill, she voted not to devolve power over the railways to the Scottish Parliament; that did not quite seem to fit with her logic. I suspect that there are several other cases where Conservatives claim to believe in giving greater power to Scotland, but in proceedings on the Scotland Bill have voted against doing that. I am sure that that was simply an oversight on her part, and not an inconsistency in approach.
Lots of Bills that pass through this House, or begin up the other end of the Corridor, appear on the face of it to be England-only, or England-and-Wales-only, but have clauses inserted by the Government—or have Back Benchers on either side of the House, or our Front Benchers, attempt to insert a clause—that would apply to the whole United Kingdom. I shall give one simple example. The rules for election to the Scottish Parliament are set by this place. We determine the boundaries, and the age at which people can vote in those elections. That is clearly a matter that affects only Scotland. I cannot possibly see how that would be anything other than a matter for the Scottish people; I would be grateful if hon. Members could point out a flaw in that thinking. However, as that is part of the Scotland Bill, I think that the argument of the hon. Member for West Worcestershire would still be that she, an English MP, would vote on the Scotland Bill, and on each part and clause of it, because the Bill would have been categorised by the Secretary of State as a Bill that impacts on multiple territories. I regret to tell the hon. Lady that that inconsistency means that her Bill is not perfectly formed.
Thomas Docherty
I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but I do not believe in that logic. I believe in the United Kingdom. I hear repeatedly from Government parties, “I believe in the United Kingdom”. Unlike the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, who is a proud separatist and supporter of independence, I believe that we are stronger together. Under our system, we are elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. If the Government parties wish to create an English Parliament or Assembly—I am not a supporter of regional assemblies, and I welcome the decision of the people of north-east England overwhelmingly to reject a regional assembly—they should bring forward that legislation. That is not what they told people at the election.
Thomas Docherty
My hon. Friend, as ever, makes a compelling argument. Indeed, as an ex-lawyer he does so much better than I ever could.
It is all about interpretation. Many people in London with strong feelings about the Crossrail Bill would have said that it had nothing to do with Members from other parts of the United Kingdom. It is, to some extent, in the eye of the beholder.
Turning to the suggestion of the hon. Member for West Worcestershire about the Secretary of State, she is a rational and reasonable individual and is a supporter of the Speaker, but it is possible that some of her colleagues are not so rational or have swivel eyes and are anti-Speaker. The measure is not designed to help the Speaker: it is about fixing the board for the game. Surely, it is in a Secretary of State’s interest, one way or the other, to determine for the benefit of their own party or of the coalition whether or not MPs of other nations should be allowed to vote.
Mr Leigh
As usual, my hon. Friend gives a very erudite speech. In all the chaff that came from the mouth of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), however, there was a grain of truth. I must put this to my hon. Friend, because he is one of our leading experts on the matter. If the current system works quite well and if, as we know, we can rely on the Speaker for his impartiality, need we add anything to the process? Need we add the Secretary of State? I make that point because it is important that we debate these matters seriously.
Oliver Heald
My hon. Friend has taken a great interest in the issue over many years and has great knowledge of constitutional matters. He makes a fair point, and I agree that the proposal may not be necessary. It may be an added extra that introduces complexities in a way that does not help as much as we think. However, that is one of the blessings of the commission, in that it will be able to look at that point—speedily, I hope—and come to a conclusion. It is important that serving on the commission are people who can bring experience and knowledge on this topic. I hope that it will be possible for the Clerk and the senior officials of the House to submit evidence to the commission or to take part in its proceedings, so that expert knowledge is brought to bear on this important point.
Finally, there has been a lot of talk about how if we had English votes for English laws, there would be two sorts of MPs. That is nonsense. When the Scotland provisions were used, nobody ever said that there were two classes of MP; indeed, one could argue that there are two classes of MP at the moment, in the sense that Scottish Members cannot deal with matters that affect their own back yard. The argument is nonsense. We are all elected on the same basis and we have Standing Orders to deal with matters. We have previously had a Scottish procedure; why can we not have an English one?
Mr Leigh
We have had a very long debate, but the issue is terribly simple. I agree with virtually everything that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has said—apart, of course, from the end game of what he is trying to achieve. The rest made sense. The issue is actually extremely simple, as becomes clear if we look at both the Bill before us—which is what we are supposed to do anyway on Third Reading—and our Standing Orders.
The Bill, actually, does not pose innumerable political problems for either side of the House. All it says, under the heading “Duties of the Secretary of State”, is:
“The Secretary of State must, when publishing draft legislation, ensure that the legal and financial effect of that legislation on each part of the United Kingdom is separately and clearly identified.”
It is as simple as that. It does not actually address the substance of the West Lothian question, but something that can address the substance of the West Lothian question is already in our Standing Orders.
It is so simply put in Standing Order 97(1):
“After any public bill has been first printed, the Speaker shall, if of the opinion that its provisions relate exclusively to Scotland, give a certificate to that effect”.
The House within five minutes next Tuesday afternoon, if it wished, could simply pass a motion to amend its own Standing Orders so that they read, “After any public bill has been first printed, the Speaker shall, if of the opinion that its provisions relate exclusively to Scotland or England, give a certificate to that effect”.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) has said—some of the points that he made were quite good—that there might be great political consequences. There would not, because as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald) has said, Standing Order No. 97 is not a closed Standing Order, because it gives a route to the House and the Minister. Once the Speaker has given his certificate, that is not the end of the process, because Standing Order No. 97(2) states:
“On the order being read for the second reading of a bill so certified, a motion may be made by a Minister”.
To respond to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, if there was doubt about whether the tuition fees Bill related exclusively to England—on the face of it, one might think that it would relate exclusively to England, given that it concerns education—because of a possible knock-on financial effect for Scotland, there could be communication through the usual channels. Despite the Speaker’s certificate sending the Bill to Grand Committee—the English Grand Committee in this case—I am sure that we could accommodate the SNP, because our Standing Orders are sensible and, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire has said, we have to live together in this place. In such circumstances, we could say that the tuition fees Bill should not be given to the English Grand Committee and that it should not be considered exclusively by English Members. There is therefore a neat and elegant solution to the problem.
Despite four decades of debate about the West Lothian question, we could move in a slow and traditional way—in a Fabian way, if I may say so; not a revolutionary way—to solve the problem. We could simply amend our Standing Orders and develop a procedure, bit by bit, through which exclusively English legislation would be referred to an English Grand Committee, so that only English Members would vote.
If that approach was such a problem, why, during the time we have had Standing Order No. 97—throughout the 20th century and, for all I know, the 19th century—has no hon. Member said that there was a great problem? There was no great debate even between 1992 and 1997. At that time, if the Speaker issued a certificate to say that a Bill was exclusively Scottish, it would be considered by the Scottish Grand Committee, on which the Labour party would have had a big majority, and there was no argument. If there was an insuperable problem with extending the remit of Standing Order No. 97 to England, one would have expected that the measure would have been the subject of great debate in the past, but that was not the case.
To return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), if the Government wanted to act, they would not need a commission. We would not need even the Bill, because all it does is say that the Secretary of State will express an opinion about how legislation will affect particular parts of the United Kingdom. The Bill is completely harmless, because it ties neither the House nor any Minister.
Thomas Docherty
I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not a Fabian—I probably never will be a Fabian—but the difference between Standing Order No. 97 and the Bill is that clause 1 provides that the Secretary of State will make the determination, not the Speaker. Does he agree that that shows the political danger in the Bill?
Mr Leigh
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, because that point was the one grain of truth in his speech. It increasingly worries me, because I wonder whether we are wrongly politicising the problem. We all know that the Bill, like all private Members’ Bills, is fundamentally a campaigning Bill. We acknowledge our debt to my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), because she has achieved a huge amount through her campaign by actually getting a commission set up, even though it is entirely unnecessary.
I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife. If I thought that the Bill, if enacted, would tie the hands of the House and politicise the process in such a way that a Conservative Education Secretary could determine that a Bill was exclusively English and therefore stop any Scottish Member voting on it, I would have my doubts. However, while my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire may tell me that her Bill is more ambitious than I believe, I can read only what it states:
“The Secretary of State must, when publishing draft legislation, ensure that the legal and financial effect of that legislation on each part of the United Kingdom is separately and clearly identified.”
The Bill does not say that the Secretary of State will decide whether a Bill is exclusively English; all that will happen is that there will be more knowledge. The Speaker would make his determination, but even after that, if my proposal were accepted, the Minister, in consultation with the other parties, could decide that a Bill—relating, say, to tuition fees—should be discussed on the Floor of the House. There is absolutely no problem or difficulty about it.
Hundreds of thousands of words have been talked about the West Lothian question—about how it will divide us, and about how there would be two classes of Member and all the rest of it. That is complete nonsense; we have always had several classes of Member. There have always been Ministers and Back Benchers. There has always been the Scottish Grand Committee, and nobody has said that it would lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. The Speaker issuing a certificate to say that a Bill is exclusively about English education will not break up the United Kingdom. It is so simple; why do the Government not do it?
Mark Lazarowicz
I do not think that the Bill that put into effect the poll tax in Scotland went to the Scottish Grand Committee, but the hon. Gentleman was here then, and I was not, and I may be wrong in my understanding. For lots of entirely non-controversial Bills, an English Grand Committee would not be a problem, but when it comes to controversial Bills, a difficulty might arise, in that Bills might have a majority in England but not be able to carry a majority in the House. That would raise the issue of a Government not being able to operate in a coherent way unless they had a majority in England, as well as in the UK as a whole.
Mr Leigh
Between 1992 and 1997—and following the 1983 and even 1979 elections, when there were large Conservative majorities but a decreasing number of Scottish Tory MPs—I remember that there were huge debates about the poll tax and the rest of it, but I do not remember that there was any specific argument about the provisions of Standing Order No. 97. Of course, it would still be in the gift of any Government to say, “This is such a large issue”—the hon. Gentleman mentioned the poll tax—“that we want to consider the legislation on the Floor of the House,” but that does not mean that Standing Order No. 97 is wrong. It does not mean that anybody argued against it. It does not mean that a Standing Order No. 97 could not be created for England, so I do not understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making.
I suggest that there is a simple, clear, elegant solution. The Government may, by all means, set up the commission if they want to, but they have to get on with the issue now. They have to make some progress. My solution is there; they should get on with it. Although I have talked in House of Commons terms about Standing Orders and all the rest of it, which sounds fairly esoteric, there is a huge political issue, which the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire has identified. It is that we have to make some concession to the English public, who are rightly outraged that so many issues that exclusively concern England are voted on by Scottish Members of Parliament, although those measures will not affect them.
I say to the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), who represents the Conservative constituency in Scotland, that he should not vote on English business, any more than I should vote on Scottish education. Indeed, I cannot vote on Scottish education. He should have a self-denying ordinance. I very much hope that when the Minister speaks, he will intimate that he will get on and solve the problem. He is the only one who can solve it, and he can do so within our Standing Orders.
Public Disorder
Edward Leigh Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
It is of course enormously helpful having Sir Hugh Orde, who served so well in Northern Ireland, as chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers, and I raised in Cobra the issue of accessing the expertise of the PSNI. One of the issues that we needed to grip quickly was the fact that this was not a political protest; they were looting gangs and so every case was different. That was one of the difficulties that the police service faced.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Is it any wonder that these events have taken place when the authority of parents, teachers and the police has been eroded so consistently for so many years? Hopefully the Prime Minister will reverse that process. He has said again and again that it is the stability of families that counts, and he has made tremendous progress in advancing the debate, but before the election he said that marriage was the key and that he would introduce a married persons tax allowance. That still has not happened. Will he now do it?
The Prime Minister
As my hon. Friend knows, I think that we should support families and marriage in every way that we can. We should set a simple test for all Government policies of whether what we are about to do will enhance responsibility, whether of parents, teachers in school or police officers on the streets. If it will, we should do it, but if it would not, we should not do it.
Public Confidence in the Media and Police
Edward Leigh Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The decision was mine. In politics, in the end, the buck stops here, with the Prime Minister. I made the decision, I defend the decision and I have given a full explanation of it today.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Is there not a real danger that this scandal will follow the pattern of so many others: first, bad behaviour; then moral outrage, a lot of it hypocritical; then lengthy judicial inquiries; and then more state regulation under the guise of independent regulation? Will my right hon. Friend therefore commit himself today to the good old Conservative values of individual liberty and freedom?
The Prime Minister
I am delighted to do that. My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is why I was concerned to ensure that there are people on the panel who really understand how television, newspapers and regulation work. For instance, I think that the fact that George Jones, who spent many years in the Lobby, will be on that panel of experts will help the committee of inquiry do its work.
European Council
Edward Leigh Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Yes, it is in the interests of the United Kingdom. Fifty per cent. of our exports go to the EU and 40% go to eurozone countries. We want the eurozone to be sustainable and strong, and it has issues that it needs to sort out, so we do not stand in the way when eurozone countries want to do more together, as they are doing through the euro-plus pact. I still think that there is a big question mark about whether they are really gripping some of the issues that they need to resolve, but none the less it is in our interests, and that is why we are playing such a constructive role in it.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Following the Prime Minister’s interesting and welcome answer to the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) on the subject of Libya, will my right hon. Friend confirm that our mission is entirely humanitarian and there is the genesis of a deal here? If Gaddafi is prepared just to hold what he has in Tripoli, we could then achieve a compromise and the end to this war.
House of Lords Reform
Edward Leigh Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and I think I agreed with virtually everything he said. There have been some outstanding independent-minded speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, including three excellent speeches: the last speech and those made by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell) and the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy). I agree with them all. It is a bit of a pity, if I might say so, that the Deputy Prime Minister did not stay for longer, because this is an important constitutional issue. I know that a lot of people in the Dog and Duck are not very exercised about it, but why should they be? It is an important debate and it is important that the Government should listen to it. I know the Minister is listening. Virtually every speech we have heard has been thoughtful and very critical of the proposals and it would be highly regrettable if the changes were forced through on a three-line Whip. I believe that the House of Commons should consider all the options very carefully and by all means come to some sort of compromise, but it would be regrettable to force this through on a three-line Whip, with people who have taken no part in the debate, who perhaps have very little interest in it and who have their careers to look after, being poured in, especially given that the proposal was not in a manifesto. Let us consider that.
I sympathise with the Deputy Prime Minister in a sense, because he has an impossible task. In the absence of a written constitution he is trying to create an elected second Chamber that is not a rival to the House of Commons, but that is a virtually impossible task. He has therefore come up with the idea, which was well summed up by the right hon. Member for Torfaen as “dotty”, of electing people for a single, 15-year term. We really have to kill that idea; I am not aware of any other major legislature in the world that does that. The points have been made again and again, so I do not need to repeat them. Those people will be elected but unaccountable, and what sort of life will they lead if they are in the House of Lords for 15 years and never have to stand again? Is the senator for the east midlands, which is a vast area, really going to want to go and talk to Poverty Action in Nottingham on a rainy Saturday night, or to their local party in Leicester on a wet Friday evening? That is not going to happen. Those people will be sitting in the Lords knowing that they are never going to be allowed to stand again—so, unaccountable in that sense—but they will claim that they are elected, and it is for the birds to suggest that they will not take on this House. Of course they will, especially if they think they are more representative because we are elected under this old-fashioned, first-past-the-post system—which by the way people quite like, but let us forget the people for a moment—and they are elected under a much more democratic, proportional representation-type system.
I think it is the worst possible system and I say to the Minister that it does not address the real problem. The problem is not a great constitutional dispute between the people and the House of Commons or between the House of Commons and the House of Lords: the problem is that there are too many Members of the House of Commons who are not sufficiently independent, because, yes, they are elected but, quite rightly, they are ambitious and they want to be Ministers as the only outlet for their energy. I suspect that once the people in the Lords are elected for their 15-year term, they will start off with all the joys of spring but will very soon be like the rest of us—they will want to become Government Ministers and they will be as much under the thumb of the Executive as most Members of Parliament are. So what will the changes achieve? Having just got rid of 50 Members of Parliament, because, apparently, too many of us are under the thumb of the Executive, why are we creating another 280-odd up there who, after a couple of years, will also want to become Ministers?
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Why, if the other Chamber is to be a revising Chamber, should there be Ministers in a reformed House of Lords? This Chamber could be well distinguished as having primary powers by being the only seat of Government Ministers—not the other Chamber.
Mr Leigh
That was an excellent intervention. There are many other legislatures in the world, such as the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate, in which one cannot be a Minister. That is why Senators in the United States are much more independent of the Executive than Members of Parliament here are. If we were to create an elected Chamber, why not have a rule that nobody up there who was elected could become a Minister? Then, perhaps, they would be free from the powers of patronage, which strongly militate against genuinely free debate in this Chamber.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
What we should be talking about is what the House of Lords is for and what it should be doing, but all we are talking about is whether it should be fully elected, fully appointed or 80:20. We should really be concentrating on what its key role is.
Mr Leigh
That is absolutely right. Perhaps we have spent too much time, even this afternoon, talking about methods of election rather than about the sort of men and women whom we want in the second Chamber and what sort of job we want them to do. Apparently, the sort of men and women we want are people of expertise who are good at revising legislation, and I submit that we have very large numbers of dedicated Members of the second Chamber who do precisely that. Of course, there are some who are lazy, corrupt or bad—and some are good, some are old and some are young—but there are scores of people up there who do their job as men and women of expertise in revising and improving legislation. Let us concentrate on the sort of people we want up there rather than being absolutely obsessed by the methods of election.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman rightly says that one of the most important things in the second Chamber is having a number of people of independent mind. Is it his experience that party leaders, when recommending people to go into the second Chamber, primarily think about their independence and their voting record in this House?
Mr Leigh
I suspect that a lot of the people taking part in this debate would quite like to end up in the other place—we all have fallible human natures. No doubt Prime Ministers reward their acolytes, friends and people who have been in the Cabinet—we all know that goes on—but before we get terribly excited about the concept of an independent appointments commission, let us consider whether it would produce a House of Lords that was necessarily superior in intellect or whether it would just produce the same old great and good from the liberal establishment and ensure that nobody of idiosyncratic views, such as myself, perhaps, or my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), would ever end up in the other place. I am not sure I accept that the concept of prime ministerial patronage is altogether wrong.
Why is the Deputy Prime Minister fixated on the concept of PR? It will not only ensure that the Lords will claim democratic legitimacy but will allow our right hon. and hon. Friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches to have a gridlock on legislation. It will make it more and more difficult for those on the radical left or the radical right to come up with ideas that will actually get into legislation. Why do we want that kind of gridlock? In the remaining seconds of my speech, I contend that what we have in the House of Lords is not so very bad. It reflects our history and traditions and I would have thought that, as Conservatives, that is what we are about. We are about preserving what is best in our history and I very much hope that as this debate proceeds to its final conclusion, there will be a blocking mechanism from the old left and the old right to throw this proposal into the dustbin of history, where I believe it belongs.
Oral Answers to Questions
Edward Leigh Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend accept that many of us who have to support his and the Government’s measures night after night cannot understand why, when the country is in such crisis, he is prepared to invoke the Parliament Act and gridlock essential legislation in the other place? Will he invoke the Tory principle of gradualism, ditch those radical proposals and come back with something much more modest?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I do not know what could be more gradualist than a proposal that would start in 2015 and not be complete until 2025. Many of the options for transition that we set out in the White Paper could not reasonably be accused of going too fast. We totally accept that a change on this scale, given that it has been discussed for more than 100 years, needs to be done carefully and incrementally.
House of Lords Reform (Draft Bill)
Edward Leigh Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said earlier, the Church is an established Church. We have set out proposals in the Bill, however, under which if progress were to be made on a largely elected, but partly appointed, House of Lords, on a supernumerary basis the Church would be represented but on a much smaller scale than we now—[Interruption.] The Bill envisages a cut from 26 bishops to 12.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Will the Deputy Prime Minister remind the House how many other countries elect people for 15 years—and he will have to do better than citing the likes of Papua New Guinea and Fiji this time? Does he not understand that having people there for 15 years will be the worst of all worlds, because they will claim democratic accountability to confront this elected House but they will be accountable to no one?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said earlier, the idea that in a reformed House of Lords there should be long non-renewable terms is not new. It has been put forward on numerous occasions before, and with cross-party support. However, if Members feel that is a step too far or the period of time is too long, that is exactly the kind of point on which the Joint Committee should seek to make representations.