Participation in Debates

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The issue around Westminster Hall is what I am told by the House authorities, which seems to me to be a reasonably authoritative position. It is a question of resources. As I said earlier, the broadcasting team is relatively small and has been working under a great deal of pressure to try to deliver not just the Chamber but Select Committees performing remotely. Those resources are not unlimited and have to be shared in a way that gives the greatest satisfaction to the most people. Westminster Hall cannot be broadcast currently with remote participation unless resources were to be taken from somewhere else. That is a question ultimately for the House if it wanted to lessen, perhaps, the facilities available to Select Committees or take resources from somewhere else. That is what I have been told by the House authorities, and I am sure that what they have told me is accurate.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

After nearly an hour of being battered from all sides, it is about time that someone supported the Leader of the House and did the unpopular thing of defending the Government. May I say that I welcome what he said and the moderate way in which he said it? While I am happy with extending this provision to people who are clinically vulnerable, may I urge him not to bow to pressure and extend virtual debating to everybody, giving everyone carte blanche? We are in danger in this country of creating two worlds: an Aldous Huxley “Brave New World” where middle class people can sit in the comfort of their own homes and do their jobs and ordinary people are forced out into the workplace. Our job is to set an example and be here. “Parliament” comes from the French “parler”, and it does not mean talking at people but talking with people. There is a practical point: if we are having a debate, we do not want to be like the Council of Europe with its dead debates where people read out speeches; we want to have people here and intervening on each other.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am naturally grateful to my right hon. Friend. He is right that we do need to be here. I share his concern that we think we should do things differently from other people. That is why I have consistently tried to set out a case where the House behaves in the way that other key workers are.

Yes, I know right hon. and hon. Members have to travel from their constituencies to get here, but other key workers have to take journeys, too—we are not alone in that. We are not alone in needing to go to our workplace because it does not operate properly without us. We should, in fact, be proud of the fact that we are key workers and, alongside other key workers, doing our duty to make democracy function.

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point about there being two groups of people, which we should bear in mind. As I said, we should be standing shoulder to shoulder with our constituents, recognising that they have to face these difficulties as well. We are not, in this sense, unique. As we can help those who are extremely clinically vulnerable, it is right that we should do so. However, that will be a limited change, because the resources and the ability to have proper debate are limiting factors in what can or should be done.

Proxy Voting

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Yes. The motion before us says:

“a certificate already granted should be varied, if satisfied there are urgent and unforeseeable circumstances”,

so Mr Speaker now has the ability to do this at very short notice. With parental leave, there is normally some element of notice, whereas with the coronavirus, there may not be any notice at all. However, there has to be some discretion for Mr Speaker, because there comes a point in the day at which it is too difficult administratively to get something in place. The hon. Gentleman raises a fair point, and I am glad to say that that has been taken account of.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend said that we have brought in proxy voting to help Members for reasons of public health. The trouble is that this whole system has been corrupted. A huge number of Members of Parliament now have proxy votes. I do not believe that the great majority of them are actually shielding or medically ill—I think it is just for convenience. This shows the creeping danger of what is going on. I would like to get from the Leader of the House, as someone who loves the House of Commons, a personal view of that and a determination that if a Member wants to vote, in virtually all circumstances, they should take the trouble to turn up here.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I hope that my right hon. Friend is wrong in saying that people are abusing the system. We have to have a system that works on trust, and that is one of the changes being made to the parental leave system: previously, evidence had to come from a doctor, but now we are accepting that hon. Members will behave honourably.

The motion states:

“The Speaker may certify that a Member’s eligibility for a proxy vote for medical or public health reasons related to the pandemic should take effect before the certificate is published in the Votes and Proceedings”.

It is for “medical or public health” reasons. That includes being in an area subject to a local lockdown; being unable to send children to school because of needing to self-isolate or because the school has required children to be at home for whatever reason; and issues relating to difficulties with public transport, which were more acute earlier in the crisis than they are now. It is a fairly broad definition because the circumstances are changeable and, to some extent, unknowable. It seems only fair to allow Members, on their own say-so and their own cognisance, to say to Mr Speaker that they feel they are in such a position that they need a proxy.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

May I press my right hon. Friend on that? Why do some Members have a proxy vote one week but are then here the next week, or they have a proxy vote and we see them wandering around the corridors? We all know that this is being abused, and I want the Leader of the House to give a firm commitment that he will not have this creeping corruption of our procedures.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Members with a proxy vote may only appear remotely. They may not appear in the Chamber. Mr Speaker has been absolutely clear on that. I would not expect Members who have a proxy vote to be in the precincts of the Palace, because if they can be here, they ought to be voting in person. Any Member who had behaved in that way would not be behaving within the spirit of the temporary Standing Order.

This system has allowed many Members to have their votes recorded, and in the current circumstances, I think it is right that we make the continuing provision for proxy voting. The broad eligibility criteria provide appropriate flexibility in the circumstances. Any Member who has any concerns related to the coronavirus must feel entitled to apply for a proxy vote, and I hope that this motion will be agreed by the House today. It will allow for the current temporary arrangements to be in place until 3 November 2020, in line with the arrangements for remote participation in the Chamber and other measures that facilitate social distancing.

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[Valerie Vaz]

They are able to cast a vote through the proxy system, but they are not able to come here to do that.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am sorry, but I cannot believe it is right that I was sitting in my garden at my daughter’s birthday party in Lincolnshire, and I could nip in and try to proxy vote. Given the circumstances we are in—we are supposed to be Members of Parliament; we are not forced to be here—most Members of Parliament can make the effort to come here in person and vote. Remote voting did not always work. I do not know what it is like in Leicester or Vauxhall, but in Lincolnshire our broadband is terrible, and at least twice the system broke down for me. Members turning up in person and being seen by their colleagues—that is the right way to vote.

[Valerie Vaz]

The right hon. Gentleman may have been in his garden, but he could not have used proxy voting—it was by remote voting. The House worked hard to get this system up and running, and there were many tests. When it came to voting, the system worked, and it enabled people not only to vote remotely, but to take part in debates, which was vital. How the right hon. Gentleman chooses to vote is a matter for him, but I know that hon. Members are assiduous. They did listen to and take part in debates, and they could vote remotely. I am sorry that he did not like the system. It did work, and it worked extremely easily.

In my oral evidence to the Procedure Committee on 21 July, I recommended the reinstatement of electronic remote voting for those Members who are unable to attend the parliamentary estate in person for public health reasons related to the pandemic. That is key: a pandemic is going on. I am delighted that the Procedure Committee also took that view, and it is unfortunate that the Leader of the House has chosen not to implement the recommendations.

Members are still unable to take part in debates on primary legislation, and can participate virtually only in questions, urgent questions and statements. I do not know whether the Leader of the House is aware that the Petitions Committee had a debate with people taking part even while shielding. We know that can work, and I hope he will look at that. As we enter a new phase of coronavirus restrictions with rising infection rates, Parliament needs a safe, functional remote system.

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[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Hon. Members may not know this, but in the 18th century Members used to send their servants to vote for them—they would mumble “Leigh” or whatever the name was. That is why we are not allowed to wear an overcoat as we walk through the Division Lobby.

I am afraid that human nature is innately lazy, and there is a reason why we vote in person. I say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) that, yes, the Government are encouraging solicitors to work from home, but this is not a solicitor’s office; this is the Parliament of the United Kingdom. We are elected by the people to come here and to be here—to be seen and to see.



With regard to the safety of Members, I agree that what we are doing is completely absurd. Here we are, totally socially distanced—I am not allowed to go just one step further towards my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie)—but then we wander through the Lobby, all crowded and chatting to each other. Is it beyond the bounds of possibility that we could have another voting terminal in the Lobby, or outside the Chamber, or in Westminster Hall? We could even have one in Portcullis House—at least it would still be in Parliament. People say that we are unsafe when voting, but there is a way of getting around it.

This whole issue of proxy voting just shows what happens when we make these reforms. I am afraid that, human nature being what it is, people would much rather be sitting at home or doing their gardening and then tapping on a computer to vote than making all the effort of coming down here. I say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East—we know that large numbers of SNP Members are proxy voting—that of course it is a crashing bore to have to come all the way here on the plane from Edinburgh or Glasgow, taking three and a half hours. It takes me three and a half hours to get here from Lincolnshire, but I take the view that if I want to speak and take part, I should make the effort to come.

What if someone is genuinely ill and cannot be here? Again, I suspect that a lot of people who have proxy votes are not really genuinely ill—it is just very convenient to sit at home, appear on the screen up there and have their say without making the effort to make the journey. But if someone is genuinely ill and does not want to come, they do what we have always done—they go to the Whips and say, “Can I have a pair?” The advantage of that is that we have to give a reason, and sometimes they say yes and sometimes they say no. If they say no, we can sometimes ignore them, as I have done many times, or, if we want to preserve our careers, we can obey the instruction and make sure we turn up.

There is nothing wrong with pairing. We have the Whips here. It would be perfectly possible. We have always done it in the past. In the famous vote that Jim Callaghan lost by one vote, there was one Labour Member genuinely ill in hospital. Even then, we were allowed to bring people down here in ambulances and the Whips would check them in. But Jim Callaghan, being a gentleman, said, “No, I’m not going to take that Labour MP out of hospital to come here in an ambulance to be checked by the Whips to vote—he will be allowed to stay in hospital and die in peace.” He lost the vote, lost the Government and lost the general election. People did things properly, and we must ensure that we do things properly.

This is a zombie Parliament. These call lists are just terrible. The much derided Speaker Bercow, who everybody apparently now dislikes—I thought he was quite a good Speaker at the time—made sure that everybody got in. The Prime Minister was constantly coming here. Mr Cameron was constantly coming here, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was always coming here: we were questioning them and everybody got in. Now we have these call lists. Some people have been applying for Prime Minister’s Question Time for two years and have not got in once. This is giving too much power to the Government. It is scandalous that some Whips are going through the Division Lobbies wielding 50 votes. This is just letting the Government off the hook.

By the way, I am all in favour of parental leave. I was on the Procedure Committee and I voted it through. I remember that when my son was born on a Thursday, the Whips made me turn up here on the Monday. They were pretty tough. They are quite nice people now, the Whips. In those days, they were all ex-Army officers who had had a good war and had burnt faces from burning tanks and things. They were cruel and horrible. They made me turn up three days after my son was born. I am all in favour of parental leave, but it has to be tightly controlled.

I beg my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley): do not take this system too far. Let us recall what has happened in this period and go back to the traditional way of being here and voting in person.

Restoration and Renewal

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

What a lovely performance. It is hard to believe that restoration and renewal, commonly known as R&R—nothing to do with rest and relaxation—was first established in 2013 by both Houses. Imagine if we had actually started the work then: it might even have been completed by now.

I can see why the Leader of the House wanted to schedule this debate. We could have debated the redundancies at British Airways, something that he did not even find time for next Wednesday, but he chose to do this now. Of the current Cabinet, only two members voted for a full decant, seven did not vote and 15, including the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House, voted against a full decant.

I hope that this debate is not about revisiting the project. Everyone accepts that work must be done on this building, not least because it is not accessible, and it is a heritage building. From seeing pictures or visiting the basement, it is clear that work must be done from a safety aspect underground and to the stonework outside. It all needs to be looked at, because this is a once-in-a-lifetime project and it will keep us going for the next few —maybe hundred—years.

I want to make a few points. First, we agreed a process in May 2019, when the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill was introduced, and it then received Royal Assent on 8 October 2019. The House agreed that, using the successful model of the Olympics, we would have a Sponsor Body and a Delivery Authority. Those are made up of experts, but there is parliamentary oversight. They became substantive bodies in April this year, and we in this House have tasked those experts with dealing with this important programme. I want to thank the parliamentarians who are serving on the Sponsor Body: the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), who has been involved in this project for a long time—he has seen it all, right from the beginning—the hon. Members for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) and for Poole (Sir Robert Syms), Lord Best, Lord Carter, Lord Deighton and Baroness Scott. They are all on the Sponsor Body, so both Houses of Parliament have oversight of the project.

Secondly, the Leader of the House alluded to costs. At all stages, the National Audit Office and the Comptroller and Auditor General are involved, and their job is clearly set out: to certify that Departments and any other bodies have used resources efficiently, effectively and with economy; and so long as they report regularly, costs can be kept in check. We are not dealing with repairs that could result in even more eye-watering figures; we are dealing with keeping this building safe. I want to put it on record that at no stage are Members or anybody visiting the building unsafe. Yes, there may be fires, but there is a team of people who put those fires out practically every day. The Clerk of the House would be absolving himself of his responsibility if he let Members in here when the building was unsafe. The case for a full decant is strong. We do not need noises off raising the prospect of alternative sites. Inevitably, there will be costs as yet uncosted.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady says that the case for a full decant is strong. I do not want to get into that argument. I want to ask her about her attitude to whether it is necessary to demolish the listed Richmond House. If she wants a full decant, could we not move into a temporary, rather than permanent, Chamber in the courtyard of Richmond House, as has been fully costed and scoped by the heritage organisation SAVE?

[Valerie Vaz]

I will come on to Richmond House, but it is not my opinion—it is an opinion that this House has taken to transfer authority for doing that to the Sponsor Body and Delivery Authority. As I said, we are not the experts; they are the experts, and they will be able to undertake that.

The case for a full decant is strong. The Prime Minister has written a letter about moving to York. I do not know whether that has been costed—perhaps the Leader of the House could tell us what costs are associated with moving there. The costings of the building work and moving to York or anywhere else is a matter for the Sponsor Body to look at. This House will not be able to continue with a patch-and-mend approach or a quick fix; that will not do. Any delays will exacerbate the problem, probably making it cost more as some of the systems reach the end of their shelf life.

The Northern Estate programme is for improvements to the buildings in Norman Shaw North and South and Derby Gate, and it is progressing. Plans to house a temporary Chamber were part of the programme. Concerns were expressed about the heritage of Richmond House, but in fact it is only 33 years old. I am pleased that the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) intervened on me, because he has been in the House for 37 years, so he will remember when Richmond House was not even there—it did not exist. We now have a strategic review, in which Members are encouraged to take part, and they have until 7 August.

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[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I am sure that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will remember the film “Groundhog Day”; as I stand here today, I have that strange feeling of déjà vu, and it is incredibly frustrating. Two and a half years ago, Members in this Chamber had a very fraught debate about what should happen to the Palace of Westminster, and now, to my regret, here we are again, revisiting that very same topic.

In preparing my remarks today, I looked in Hansard at the debate that we held on 31 January 2018, and I wish to remind the House of a few of the key points that I made as Leader of the House at the time. First, I said that 24/7 fire patrols carried out by teams of officers are necessary for Parliament to maintain its fire safety licence. With 7,500 people working in the Palace and more than 1 million visitors a year, the risks are immense. I said:

“Over the past 10 years, 60 incidents have had the potential to cause a serious fire.”

I went on:

“Secondly, there is a huge amount of asbestos packed into the walls”—

used to lag ancient pipes—

“that needs to be carefully and expensively removed”

before repairs can begin.

Thirdly, I said that many pipes and cables that are stuffed into the basement and throughout the Palace are literally

“decades past their lifespan, with some now being impossible to access. The likelihood of a major failure”

of sewerage, burst water pipes or critical system grows the longer the vast backlog of repairs and maintenance

“are left unaddressed.”—[Official Report, 31 January 2018; Vol. 635, c. 880-881.]

Fourthly, on several occasions in recent months, falling stone masonry has forced parts of the Palace to be closed off, and it is only by sheer luck that no one has been injured or killed.

It is not a case of whether we fancy moving out or staying here. If we do not move out, all the evidence points to a disaster that will force us to move out. If and when that happens, as I pointed out in 2018, the contingency arrangement for a catastrophic failure in the Palace is a temporary Chamber in a building in Parliament Square using curtains and temporary wiring that is designed to last for a few weeks at most. That is the truth about the current situation, and that is why, in January 2018, the House agreed that we need to take action.

The Palace of Westminster is a UNESCO world heritage site, it is one of the most famous buildings in the world, and it is the seat of our democracy. Even if we cared not a jot for any of those facts, we still do not have the option to walk out and, as the SNP would like, simply hand the keys back to the Queen. It is our duty to maintain this iconic Palace for the more than 1 million visitors each year from around the world.

About 75% of the cost is for non-cosmetic work on the Palace. The money will be spent dealing with mechanical and engineering works, aimed at preserving essential services for future generations. It is not about carpets, curtains and wallpaper.

When I first looked at the issue of restoration and renewal, I started out with a healthy degree of scepticism, as many hon. Members will have today. I was told, “Let’s use the Lords Chamber while ours is repaired,” “Let’s build a Chamber in Westminster Hall,” “Let’s have a floating Chamber on the Thames,” and, “Let’s move into Church House,” which was last used for Parliament in world war two. They are all excellent ideas and each one has been painstakingly and seriously considered.

Then came the horrific murder of PC Keith Palmer and a major review of security that identified that elected Members of Parliament should in future be secured within the Palace perimeter to keep us and, vitally, those who protect us safe from harm. That fact, combined with the obvious need for a permanent contingency plan for future generations, clearly pointed to establishing a permanent and alternative contingency venue for the Commons to meet and work within the Palace perimeter wall.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Although of course we have now proven that we can work virtually if we have to.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Indeed we have, and we have also shown that at least some of us need to be in this place so that we can continue to do our work properly. I absolutely share the concerns of hon. Members that we must get the best value for taxpayers’ money, so I certainly welcome the Sponsor Body’s review of the plans to move to a rebuilt Richmond House, but I urge hon. Members who are lobbying for us to stay in the Palace with no contingency arrangements and allow the vital work to go on all around us to accept that that is not realistic.

The day I first visited the basement, a sewage pipe had just burst—I was sure that they had done it deliberately. I could not walk through because there was a stinking spray right along the passageway. It visibly demonstrated the challenge that our engineers are up against. Don’t get me started on the asbestos snots that are all over the walls down there as a result of old pipe lagging—who knew? It is horrible; there is so much to repair. I am pleased to report to the House, however, that I no longer have a rat in my bin. I have moved office to Portcullis House and that rat has also moved on.

The last time the Palace was restored was because it had burned down. Those who believe that we should not spend the money should consider the cost of rebuilding from the ashes. We have seen the devastation that happened at Notre-Dame, and it would be unforgiveable to allow a similar disaster to happen here because we cannot be bothered to move out.

On the hugely positive side—the sunlit uplands—the restoration and renewal of this magnificent palace will create employment, training opportunities, apprenticeships and economic growth for small businesses and craftsmen and women across the UK. It will showcase UK creativity and ingenuity, spotlighting the best of British. It will provide work to thousands of individuals who, in a post- covid world, will surely need it. This programme should rightly form a part of the palace’s historic legacy, and its place in the world for future generations to come.

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[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, too, wish we were debating something else. I would like to be debating, for instance, the way British Airways is treating its staff and, for that matter, its customers, but we have this debate this afternoon. I could just say, “I refer hon. Members to the speech that I made last time”, or to the one before, but, unfortunately, I am not going to do that.

I do love this building. Sometimes, it is the small quirky bits of the building that I love. It is not just the obvious historical bits. When one walks through St Stephen’s Hall, there is the painting of Wolsey demanding more money from Thomas More, who was Speaker at the time. It is a great moment of British history. I love it because it was painted by Vivian Forbes and his lover Glyn Philpot. The sad story is that, when the painting was finished and Glyn Philpot died, Vivian Forbes took his own life 24 hours later. There are so many different layers of history in this building—it is woven into every single aspect of our history—and I think that we need to preserve it, not in aspic, but we need to preserve it.

There are lots of things that have not changed since the last debate. The truth is—notwithstanding the comments from the SNP earlier, or, for that matter, from the Prime Minister in his letter yesterday—we are not going anywhere else. As I am sure the Leader of the House will remember, when they tried to get Parliament to go to York in the1460s, there was no business to transact, so it ended up not sitting properly at all. And when Parliament met in York in the 14th century it only did so because the king was terrified of an invasion by the Scots. I do not think that that is the concern of the Prime Minister at the moment, although there are some worries about a border.

I made an important point earlier about the capacity for doing additional work here in the Palace. It seems crazy, but we emptied out the cloisters to do work immediately, we got rid of all the staff who were working there, and the cloisters are still completely empty; there is no extra space on the parliamentary estate to put extra workers to be able to get the work done. That is an increasing problem. There are projects that have been done very successfully. The cast-iron roofs have been done on time and on budget. It has been an excellent project. The inside of the roof in Westminster Hall has been attended to very well. There are projects that are going well, but we are accumulating, every year, more and more additional projects, and the backlog is getting worse.

Richmond House is still contiguous to the Northern Estate where most of our parliamentary offices are. That was one of the main reasons, when I was on the Joint Committee, that we considered using Richmond House. It diminished the security threats of crossing over to some other building across the road. It is not about the convenience of Members; it just made it possible for people to do their jobs safely.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

When the hon. Gentleman was on the Joint Committee, there was not a proposal to demolish the building.

[Chris Bryant]

Actually, there was. The memory of the right hon. Gentleman is failing him, I am afraid. There was a proposal to demolish it. The bit that I think he differs on is whether there was a proposal to demolish the staircases, which some people think are intrinsic to Richmond House. Personally, I think that they are the ugliest bit of the building. The truth is, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) said earlier, it would be perfectly possible if people like the right hon. Gentleman had not been complaining that we had to have a Chamber that was identical to this Chamber—[Interruption.] If I am diminishing the right hon. Gentleman, my memory is different from his. If we wanted to go to a system where we slightly changed the parameters of what is in there, I am up for that, but it remains a fact that Richmond House is the only piece of land that is contiguous to the rest of the parliamentary estate and therefore safe.

As for the other things that have not changed, the building was designed as a whole, not from the very beginning, but after the fire. After 1834, one of the great, clever things that Barry and Pugin did was to amalgamate the estate into a single proposition about the British constitution, from the Commons through to the Lords and the monarch and incorporating the ancient Westminster Hall from the 11th century. That poses a real problem for those who want us to decant in part, because there is one central heating system, which is steam under high pressure; there is one electricity system; there is one drainage system; there is one water system; and there is one basement, interconnected, with a set of risers that connect it to the one attic and roof. That is the problem for the future safety of the building.

The reason I completely disagree with the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown)—it is rare for us to disagree on matters of this kind—about the idea of a partial decant, and the Commons going down to the Lords while the Lords go elsewhere, is that the Lords is not contiguous to the offices on the northern estate. So a safe passageway would be needed for votes and for people to be able to take part in debates, or people would have to walk along the pavements outside. All the advice that was given to us was that that was a security risk for us. More importantly, one of the problems with trying to keep us in the Lords—which, incidentally, is too small a Chamber with far too few seats for the House of Commons to be able to sit in—is that if we kept this building working while it was a building site, we would dramatically increase the risk of a further fire and we would increase the risk to the staff who were working in it. That was precisely the problem in Notre Dame, and that is what led to the massive fire there.

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[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

This debate has often falsely been portrayed as a debate between pragmatic modernisers such as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who by the way I cannot help liking and respecting—I do not know why, but I do—and traditionalists who are putting their own comfort first. Actually, the arguments are far more complex. I have spent quite a lot of time over the past few years talking to architects and mechanical and electrical engineers, and I personally believe that compared with the present plans, there are greener, cheaper, faster and better solutions.

May I burnish my credentials with those who say that we have to get on with this work by saying that 25% of the space in the Palace is currently taken up by unseen historical ventilation systems? I went round some of them yesterday. There are 24-hour fire checks in many roof and basement areas. There were four fires in 2019, eight fires in 2018 and even a small fire in the basement last month. We all accept that the work has to be got on with as quickly as possible.

My contention is that if we follow the present plans, we will face years of delay and public inquiries, because when the original Joint Committee met, it was told that it could fit a temporary Chamber into one of the courtyards of Richmond House. It was given the wrong measurements and that is how we started the whole genesis of knocking down all of Richmond House.

[Mark Tami]

It was not so much that the Joint Committee was given the wrong measurements; actually, the plans were different from the structure that was built, and the basement turned out to be 10% smaller. I do not know whether the builder, whoever it was, had fiddled the system, but that was the reason.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am grateful. That points out some of the problems.

I come to the present proposal to knock down Richmond House, which is, of course, a listed building. I never thought that I would defend a building younger than myself, but I am. It was listed for a purpose—to preserve it. It is an award-winning building. The best way to be carbon neutral, actually, is not to knock down an existing building, so even if people are in favour of full decant—I do not want to repeat all the arguments—we do not need to knock down Richmond House. I have been working with SAVE, the architectural heritage association, and it is perfectly possible to build a temporary Chamber in the courtyard. If it is temporary, it may be a tiny bit uncomfortable. There will be less of a tendency, once we leave this building, for the works to drag on for five or 10 years—and it will be five or 10 years. We have seen with modern voting systems that we can vote electronically. We do not need two wide Division Lobbies, and all the rest.

I am looking now to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I think that we can very quickly probably come to a kind of consensus—that we do not need to go to the super-gold-plated option of knocking down Richmond House and exactly replicating this space, with the Division Lobbies. They have even made the Division Lobbies wide enough to have the oriel windows, but we do not need those in any temporary future Chamber.

There is a better, cheaper, faster alternative, however, and I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). I have been working with Anthony Delarue, a well-respected architect, who has a long history of working with historic buildings. It is perfectly possible to have a line of route through Westminster Hall, St Stephen’s Hall and Central Lobby into the House of Lords Chamber, which could be used by the House of Commons, as it was in the second world war, perhaps with the House of Lords put in the Royal Gallery. It would be perfectly possible, according to expert opinion, to have the services taken from outside—from services in Abingdon gardens or Victoria Tower gardens—and we could start getting on with this work now.

Contrary to the horror stories that we have been told, it is possible to get on with this work, make considerable progress with the ventilation systems, the heating systems, the electrical and mechanical systems and the asbestos systems while we continue to work in this Palace, which is the iconic home of British democracy. As we have heard, it has 1 million visitors every year. Do we really want to close this building down? I think that it will be 10 years—I do not think it will be five years once we lose control of this process. Do we want to lose 1 million people a year times 10? That is a lot of schoolchildren who will never visit this place. At least if we can keep Westminster Hall and Central Lobby open, and if we can have visitors coming to witness our debates in the House of Lords Chamber and visiting the House of Lords in the Royal Gallery, we would be doing a service to our constituents.

I repeat this vital point. We are told again and again that it is impossible to split up the services. I have been around in the past week with a mechanical and electrical engineer and he says that that is simply not true. After all, we create, in days, pop concerts for hundreds of thousands of people, but we are told, “No, we can’t do that. We can’t take services from outside. It’s all too difficult. We have to surrender control of the process.” I simply do not buy into that. I think that it is groupthink and, frankly, that we have been bamboozled in the past four or five years. There are alternative, costed, expert opinions saying that there are cheaper, greener and better ways to do this. If there is a real fire risk, and I think there is a real fire risk, why delay this whole process for years while we seek to demolish Richmond House, while we have a public inquiry and while we build a permanent replica Chamber?

By the way, what will we actually use that Chamber for? When visitors come here in 10, 15 or 20 years’ time, do they want to be visiting a replica? They will want to see this Chamber, where Winston Churchill spoke or Jacob Rees-Mogg—that great orator of the early 21st century. They do not want to be going to see a replica. It will be the most glorious white elephant.

And do we really want to move the House of Lords to QEII, with all the security implications and losing the rent that the Government gain from it? The plans for QEII are wildly extravagant: those involved want to create a roof-top terrace, and they want to demolish the existing conference hall so that the height of the temporary House of Lords Chamber is the same as the existing House of Lords Chamber. The fact is that this has become out of control.

I see the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), in her place, and we are the guardians of the public purse. Of course we have to put safety first and of course we have to do the work properly, but we do not need to have a feeding feast over 10 years or 15 years, costing between £10 billion and £20 billion, with this gold-plated option of demolishing Richmond House, moving out completely and stripping everything out of this building while we are evicted.

I end on this point: there is a compromise, and I wish my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) well. The debate has moved on, even in small things or not so small things. We were told even quite recently—I was told this by the present Leader of the House—that we had to knock down Richmond House because we needed more office space. That is a strange and quite a circular sort of argument: we need to knock down an office building to get more office workers. We do not need them. The entire civil service is now working virtually and the entire civil service will almost certainly go on to a three-day week. We have proven that we do not need an emergency Chamber in case of a disaster; we can work virtually for a few weeks or, indeed, a few months. The whole debate has moved on and we need to think again, but we do not need to delay. We can get on with the work around us now, and that is what we should do.

Business of the House

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I congratulate the hon. Lady on the birth of her child in February? There is no greater joy than a new life coming into the world. As regards how this House operates, the Procedure Committee is looking at the issue of proxy voting for maternity and paternity leave, which seems to be a scheme that has worked well. I know that the hon. Lady gave evidence to the Procedure Committee recently on that subject. Ultimately, though, Parliament must be a coming together of Members from across the country physically, and as soon as it is safe to have it entirely physical once again, that is what we must get back to.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

May I make a controversial statement—that we live in a parliamentary democracy? As regards wearing face masks, I do not think that there will be time, because the order has not been laid, to have a debate. Surely the Leader of the House—indeed, the Government—in a matter as controversial as the enforced wearing of face masks from an increasingly authoritarian Executive, know that there should be a debate here and a vote. After all, this is highly controversial and everybody in the country has a view. Up to 70 million people will be affected by it. Lincolnshire has an infection rate of 150 in 150,000, so we have natural social distancing anyway. Why can we not just have more democracy and less authoritarianism from this Government?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I understand it—although I will be corrected if this is not right—it is a made affirmative statutory instrument that will have to come to the House in due course, in accordance with the normal procedures. But my right hon. Friend is absolutely right; we are a parliamentary democracy, so decisions made by the Government have to be supported by this House. It is worth bearing in mind that the House passed the emergency legislation which provided the powers for these things to happen.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The question of parliamentary privilege applying to the ICGS is one that will have to be determined by a court, and it is not entirely clear whether they would be covered by the article 9 rights. The reason we have to have a final vote in this House is that there is no court outside Parliament that can question the proceedings in Parliament. That is at the heart of the constitutional dilemma that we have been facing. It is also why we are making this fundamental break with the past.

In allowing an independent body to take such action we are making a really important constitutional change. We are doing this—and we are right to do this—because of the way that some Members have behaved, and we have to stop that happening in the future. As Leader of the House, I am ashamed when people come to see me and tell me what they have suffered; I am appalled at the stories they tell me and shocked sometimes that they have not been to the police about them when they are so awful. That is why we have to have this change, which hits at the heart of our constitution. The House knows that I have an admiration and affection for our constitution that does not seek to change it lightly.

Let me come to the panel and the level of member that we expect. The panel’s members must bring significant expertise to the process, and we will expect it to be led by somebody who has a standing equivalent to that of a High Court judge. It must also include knowledge of human resources, employment law, bullying and harassment cases and sexual harassment cases. In a serious case, three of the independent experts would consider the sanction in the light of the report and recommendation of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. A further three would act as an appeal panel if necessary.

In cases considered by the panel that propose sanctions requiring action by the House, the panel would report directly to the House. At that stage, a motion would be moved by a member of the House of Commons Commission to implement the sanction, and it is at this stage where we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, it is constitutionally proper that a decision of this magnitude—the expulsion or suspension of a Member—can only be taken by the House as a whole. It is removing, in effect, albeit temporarily, the democratic representation of tens of thousands of people, and we can only take away that democratic representation by a motion of this House. It does not seem right that a decision that could overturn the result of an election in a constituency could be taken by unelected individuals.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

All bullying is horrible and goes against traditional good manners; we all accept that. I hope that the Leader of the House will emphasise the point that he just made: the fundamental difference between Members of Parliament and all other staff members is that we are elected by the people. We are responsible to the people, and the people must have the final say on whether we come here in the first place, when we leave and how we leave. That is very important. However distinguished an independent panel, only the people have the final say.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. Friend makes a crucial point: we are elected by the people, and we are answerable to them. That is why I support the principle that only the House of Commons holds the authority to make the decision to suspend or expel.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I support the motions tabled by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, but I have also added my name to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is Chair of the Committee on Standards, on which I serve. The amendment would mean that the House would ratify the decisions of the ICGS independent expert panel without debate.

Evidence of the mistreatment of the staff of this House, of right hon. and hon. Members’ staff and even of Members of the House themselves was for far too long managed out of public view to avoid proper scrutiny, meaning that those responsible were never held to account. That is why the ICGS must be as it describes itself: independent. Unless we understand how we MPs have forfeited the trust of victims, we will fail to learn the lessons of our past and fail to honour our obligation to put matters right.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

So my hon. Friend thinks it is alright to pass control of who is here from the people—from this House; this House is responsible to the people—to an independent body. He thinks that is okay, does he?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

To expel or even just suspend an MP voted in by their electors is a serious matter. It is perfectly sensible for my right hon. Friend to test the opinion of the House on whether the House should debate a decision by the IEP, but the delegation of such decisions has no bearing on our sovereignty, whether we debate the matter or not. By voting for the amendment we will not only demonstrate our commitment to the ICGS. By deliberating and then deciding on these matters, we make sure that there can be no legitimate complaint about there being no debate when at some future date we are asked to approve the IEP decisions.

I do, however, wish to put down a caveat. If the wrong kind of panel is appointed, this delegation of a very serious constitutional responsibility to unelected people will not last. The IEP must inspire the trust and confidence of the House as well as of staff and the public. The legitimacy of such decisions taken by such a panel will be the issue. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, it needs to be chaired by the equivalent of a High Court judge.

I would say that it should be a retired senior judge who chairs this panel, supported by relevant people of similar standing with juridical experience of the assessing and weighing of evidence and of interpreting the meaning of rules. The IEP should itself be sufficiently judicial in character to provide the same assurance as a proper court. Its decisions need to be as unimpeachable as the High Court would be. If this works well, there is much that the Standards Committee might learn from the ICGS about how to improve the House of Commons code of conduct, which we still have under review.

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House talked about changing the culture. That is something that the House of Commons code has never really succeeded in doing. What do we mean by culture? We mean changing people’s attitudes and changing their behaviour, and that is a very personal and difficult thing to discuss. It is about not just talking about that, but approving of the good behaviours and the good attitudes and calling out the bad long before people have actually broken rules. I suggest that promoted alongside that is a positive conversation as well as a holding to account. It is not just about the enforcement of rules. Our challenge on the Standards Committee is to reform the House of Commons code so that it begins also to promote a positive change in attitudes and behaviour.

Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I welcome this motion. I served, under Dame Caroline Spelman, on the Joint Committee that recommended that we proceed in this way. I have done a considerable amount of work on the subject over the years because, as the Leader of the House said, our primary concern should be the saving of public money.

I would like to have served on the sponsor body, but it was not to be. I wish those who have been appointed every success, because they have a very important task. Given the crisis that we are facing, we have to think again, and I am sure that when those on the sponsor body address the subject, their No. 1 concern will be to save public money, ensure the safety of Members and preserve this historic building.

Even before the public health crisis that we are facing, there were difficult decisions to be made about public spending, increases in taxation and trying to divert resources from London to the north of England in particular. Even before this crisis, which will probably necessitate the largest expansion of the state since the second world war, I think that people would have started to look askance at our spending billions of pounds on ourselves when there might well be a cheaper alternative. When the sponsor body has its first meeting, it might consider that this is the moment to review the whole project and look at whether we can do it significantly more cheaply than the present option.

When the House voted, quite narrowly, for a full decant, we were in a very different world. Of course, the original Select Committee on which my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) served accepted a full decant on the basis that it would be possible to create a temporary Chamber in the courtyard of Richmond House. The Committee was actually given the wrong measurements; the incompetence of this is beyond belief. It was then announced that because it was no longer possible to create such a Chamber, which the authorities claimed would have to be exactly the same size as the existing one, with the same size Division Lobbies—the whole works—it was now proposed to demolish all of Richmond House, at a cost of many hundreds of millions of pounds.

I have been working with SAVE, the architectural heritage body. We have come up with well-costed proposals, designed by architects, to create much more cheaply, if it was deemed necessary to have one, a temporary Chamber in the courtyard of Richmond House that was exactly the same size—[Interruption.] It would be exactly the same size as this Chamber. There is absolutely no need to demolish Richmond House, which is an award-winning listed building.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s passion about this subject, but this is a very narrow motion about the membership of the Committee, not about the exact dimensions of any proposed future Chamber. I must hold the right hon. Gentleman to the particular matter before us. He can address the general issue, but talking about exact dimensions is going a bit far.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I will certainly not dwell on the exact dimensions. I was making the simple, general point that there might cheaper options than the proposal to demolish Richmond House and build a permanent replica Chamber.

The other point that the new sponsor body has to consider is what will happen when the House of Lords is moved to QEII. It would be possible to place the Lords quite cheaply and simply in that building at a relatively small cost. There is already a large conference chamber there, which holds up to 700 people—big enough even for the House of Lords. Their lordships may have to forgo their planned rooftop terrace dining room, which would cost £200 million, but, given the present crisis facing the nation, I am sure that they will be prepared to do that.

Even more cheaply—speaking in very general terms, Madam Deputy Speaker, to comply with your ruling—it may not even be necessary to have a temporary Chamber erected in the courtyard of Richmond House. Having commissioned architects to work on this subject, I can say that it would be perfectly possible for this Chamber to move temporarily to the House of Lords Chamber, as we did in the second world war, with a line of route through Westminster Hall and Saint Stephen’s Chapel.

To sum up, there are many cheaper alternatives that must and should be explored by the sponsor body, as our primary concern is to save public money, carry out these works as expeditiously as possible and not waste time, perhaps until 2027, waiting for a replica Chamber to be built. We should get on with the work now and preserve this historic building.

Business of the House

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I cannot give the hon. Lady a date for her diary, but the Government are prioritising that Bill. It is on the stocks and ready to be brought back soon—it will certainly be introduced before Easter.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Can we have a debate on rail connectivity with the north of England? My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and I have been campaigning for years for a through train from Grimsby via Market Rasen to London. This is a catchment area of up to a quarter of a million people with no through train. The Government want to introduce projects to help the north of England and they own London North Eastern Railway. Can we get the train done?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

First, may I add to my answer to the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns)? My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has just issued a written ministerial statement on Northern Rail, which I hope will be helpful to the House.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) for his appeal for a through train and for his noting that the Government are trying to improve infrastructure in the north of England. His appeal will be heard, and I shall make sure it is passed on to the Secretary of State. What he is calling for fits in with the thrust of what the Government are trying to do, but that is not a promise.

Business of the House

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I take this opportunity to thank the hon. Gentleman, on behalf of the whole House, for the wonderful work he does on the Backbench Business Committee and in ensuring that the House gets to debate the issues at the forefront of its mind and that Parliament functions effectively. I take very seriously what he said about the debates that may come up after an election or a Queen’s Speech and that require attention before the Backbench Business Committee has been reformed.

As to my recumbent position, I assure the hon. Gentleman that my office is drawing up a position paper for me and is coming up with a recline to take.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

We have indeed had a panoply of questions, apart from the obvious one: when the motion on the early general election is considered at the end of Monday, will the Bill that the House of Commons passed yesterday on ruling out no deal have received Royal Assent? The reason I ask is that I distinctly heard the Leader of the Opposition say yesterday that once the Bill became law, he would vote for an early general election. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be quite extraordinary, after this long Session of Parliament, which is clearly deadlocked, if every Member of Parliament—or at least two thirds—did not vote for an immediate general election to put this to the people?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is indeed an addled Parliament that is not able to get things done, and the conclusion that my right hon. Friend draws is correct. Royal Assent will be given speedily once the Bill has completed its passage through the House of Lords and come back to us, if necessary, with any amendments. I obviously cannot predict what their lordships will do, but if it completes those stages, it will receive Royal Assent, and speedily.

European Union (Withdrawal)

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, you are very generous to me. I will try to be extremely brief. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) has just enabled me to be briefer, because he made the key point in the last few moments of his speech when he talked about what really lies behind this Bill, from the point of view of Parliament and parliamentary democracy.

We all know that we are in the middle of an historic crisis, and we all know that our duty is to take the decision that will be best for future generations and will do least damage to our political standing in the world and to our economy. This horrendous debate, which is tearing the country apart, is doing great harm to our political institutions, and particularly Parliament. A large number of the population on either side of the European debate are beginning to hold Parliament almost in contempt. Fanatic leavers are convinced that it is wicked MPs who are undermining the people’s will and that we are solely responsible for the appalling deadlock we are in.

I am very glad that, with your help, Mr Speaker, my right hon. Friends and others have found this way of enabling Parliament to assert itself, give its view and face the fundamental challenge from a constitutional point of view which will determine the political relationship between Governments of all colours and Parliaments for quite a long time to come.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Mr Clarke]

With great respect, I would love to debate with my right hon. Friend, and I often have, but my speech will get longer and longer once I give way. As Mr Speaker has not put me under the time limit, I will try to avoid giving way, to be fair to others.

The reason for this motion and the underlying reason for the opposition to it is simply that the Government are insisting on pursuing a policy that they know a majority in Parliament is opposed to. There is no precedent for it that I can think of—certainly not in modern times. I have been around for long enough, but 10 years ago, if a Government had attempted to implement a policy that they knew the majority of Parliament were against, it would have created outrage.

Parliament has twice voted against leaving with no deal. This Prime Minister has plainly determined that he has put himself in a position where he has got to have no deal. We have seen the most extraordinary attempts to avoid this House having opportunities to vote on that, to debate it and to play a role in it. If Parliament allows itself to be sidelined, the precedent that we will create for future generations and for the behaviour of future Governments of all complexions vis-à-vis Parliament will be quite horrendous.

We have heard arguments about the importance of limiting these emergency debates. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is very good at keeping a straight face when he is coming out with arguments that are almost incredible. The benefits of trading solely within the WTO I will leave on one side. I am sure the North Koreans thrive under that in every conceivable way. [Laughter] I think it is only the North Koreans, the Algerians and perhaps the Serbians who do that. When the Leader of the House says how important it is that this House defends its traditions by making sure that in no circumstances can it ever debate business of its own choice, even in an emergency—and I know that he is a profound parliamentarian and deeply committed to the wellbeing of this place—his ability to keep a straight face is quite remarkable. However, I am being deflected from the serious point I was making.

Prorogation was the final, almost charmingly naive, attempt to make sure that there was not even an opportunity by mistake for something on the Order Paper to enable anybody here to express their opinion. Apparently, it is suddenly frightfully important that the Government’s whole new policy package—which seems to be emerging at an extraordinary rate, in figures anyway—is put before Parliament before the end of October, when we have not really bothered with policy of that kind for a very long time. It is plainly impossible to put it off until the beginning of November!

Most importantly, apparently the reason for the extremely long break is that it is extremely important that we do not distract the public from paying proper attention to the party conferences! [Laughter.] We have to be respectful to the Trades Union Congress; we cannot distract the television sets of the nation from the Liberal assembly; apparently every Conservative MP is dying to go to the Conservative conference. [Laughter.] We know there are people who will have engagements there, but I am sure the pairing system can cope with that. The idea that at the moment of such historic crisis, such momentous decisions, the House can be faced with arguments of that kind, I find quite preposterous and very saddening.

Given that we are being treated in this way, it is quite obvious that the House must seize its own agenda—that is all that this evening’s vote is about—and make the most of the opportunity in the next few days. Then the House can make key decisions on what it will legally require the Government to pursue in the national interest: most importantly being strongly against just leaving with no deal. I would be amazed if a majority does not emerge, yet again. It is not that anybody really wants that—I think about 20 Members of the House of Commons really think it is a good idea to leave with no deal. It is the right of my party, that has given up and decided to get it over with: “Leave with no deal; it’s all the fault of the Germans, the French and particularly the Commissioners—all the fault of Parliament. Have a quick election, wave a Union Jack and then we will sort out the bumps that will come when we have left.” The House must stop that, and use the opportunity.

Tomorrow we will debate the merits of the arguments. We will go on and on. I am dying to intervene in more of the arguments—I have already spoken in this House more than most on Europe, and we all know where we stand on the leave/remain arguments—but there is one point of real substance that I would like to address tonight, on which I am afraid for the first time ever the Leader of the House was slightly annoying me. He was using what is currently the cliché, extreme right-winger argument, that anybody who wants to stop a no-deal Brexit is actually reversing the referendum. I think we exactly reflect the public; Parliament, in its paralysed confusion, entirely reflects the division of the public, where there is no clear majority for anything, so far, except that we are against leaving with no deal. We cannot get a majority for anything else; everything else has so far been blocked by hard-line right-wing people who do not want any deal with foreigners, and people’s vote people, who will not vote for anything that involves leaving the European Union because they want another referendum. I am afraid they have, so far, outnumbered the middle. I think more of them should join the middle, because I believe, with great reluctance, that the obvious compromise, to bring together both public opinion and this House, is a soft Brexit where we keep the present economic ties.

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House says that I am just defying 17 million people. Well, I have not defied 17 million people. I have already compromised. I was not in favour of the referendum. I feel very self-justified, looking back on it. I did not vote for it; I made it clear that I was not going to change my lifelong opinions because of one day’s vote on a simple question on the terribly complicated subject of our national destiny. I even voted against invoking article 50; I was guilty of that. Since then, I have accepted that the only way to proceed is a soft Brexit: to leave the political union and stay in those superbly free trade arrangements, which British Conservative Governments took a leading role in creating. I have voted for Brexit three times. If the Bill gets passed, and if we get on to the substance of the thing, I will vote for Brexit again. I have had the privilege of at least once voting alongside the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House in favour of Brexit, on terms which they now treat with derision.

I do not want to listen to conspiracy theories about the Irish backstop. Sadly, I do not think any of the English public take any interest in Irish political affairs; nine out of 10 have no idea what the Irish backstop is. It is an entirely closed little debate—but a very important one, I concede. I am strongly in favour of the Irish backstop unless we could replace it with something that is, equally, absolutely guaranteed to preserve the Good Friday agreement. At the root, we have to deliver to the people, and I think we could get a broad mass of the public together on something that keeps our economic ties together and attempts—as the EU keeps doing under British leadership—to extend free trade through more and more EU trade agreements, which we took the leading part in pressing for and which we are now about to walk out of to go back to WTO terms all over again, with South Korea and Mercosur and so on. That must be stopped.

I would like to see a Bill in which we put more positive steers from this House. We all know what we are against—no deal—but we cannot agree on what we are for. I do not think that making it a legal obligation to seek a customs union or to have some regulatory alignment would make the Prime Minister’s position more difficult in Europe; they would just wonder why on earth no British leader had asked for that before. I will leave that until the proceedings on the Bill.

If this Parliament does not pass this motion, it will be looked back upon with total derision. What sort of a Parliament was it, in the middle of this crisis, that said to the Government—this new Government, this populist Government, storming away as it is—“Oh yes, we quite agree with you: we should not be troubled with this. The Executive, as we have just been told, have absolute powers. We are only a debating society, only commenting when we are allowed. Feel free to deliver what you wish by 31 October.”? Then we go back to our constituents and say, “It is very important that you have us to represent you in Parliament, to look after your interests, but as it happens we have given unbridled powers to Boris for the next few months on the European question.”

You may gather, Mr Speaker, that I am going to vote for this motion, with more passion than I usually go through the Lobby. It is an extremely important evening.

Business of the House

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. She was herself a very distinguished shadow Leader of the House and she is somebody I have great admiration for in her appreciation for the Commons as an institution. I absolutely assure her that I take that part of my role extraordinarily seriously. I have perhaps a somewhat romantic view of the House of Commons—one I think I share with you, Mr Speaker—in that I believe it is our job to hold the Government to account, not simply to facilitate whatever the Government want to do. However, this House passed into law the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and the article 50 Act, and we only speak our view by legislation. We do not speak our view by mere motion, and mere motion cannot and must not overturn statute law. If that were to happen, we would not have a proper functioning representative democracy; we would have an erratic, changeable and irregular system of government.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

What a pleasure it is to welcome my hon. Friend to the Dispatch Box: a fellow Ultramontane Catholic. I am not sure that many people here know what that means, but my hon. Friend knows—perhaps luckily.

My hon. Friend has a firm grasp of history; perhaps some would say he is living history. Does he agree that so much of the work we do here depends on our being here in the Palace of Westminster? I do not want to pin him down because I do not want him to rule anything in or out at this very early stage, but is he aware that many of us believe that if we do have to leave this Palace, it should be for as short a time as possible; that when we return, it should be exactly as it is now; that our priority should be the safety of the building; and that we should care about heritage, particularly the heritage of Richmond House?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I share my right hon. Friend’s admiration for the late Pope Pius IX. In terms of this House, what it represents and the symbolism of this building, what our Victorian predecessors did was to show, through their architecture, their belief in their democratic system and their confidence in our great nation. We should never do anything that undermines that. The idea that we should be in some modern office block in the middle of nowhere, or that we should fail to have the understanding and the glory of our democracy that this House, through its building, shows is one I utterly reject.