Liaison (Membership)

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We now come to the motion on the membership of the Liaison Committee. Mr Speaker has selected amendment (a) in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). The provisional determination is that a remote Division will take place on the amendment if it is moved. The provisional determination is that a remote Division will not take place on the main motion, as amended or not, as the case may be. I call the Leader of the House, Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg, to move the motion, and I ask that he speak for no more than four minutes.

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[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We are having an election; there may be a Division—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman will not interrupt.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I turn to the amendment in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and others. It seeks to limit the eligibility of those who can chair the Committee to existing Select Committee Chairs. The Government have chosen to put forward a distinguished Member to chair the Liaison Committee. It is for the House to decide—extending the degree of democracy—whether it agrees the Government’s motion and thereby approves my hon. Friend’s appointment. In this way, the motion is the most democratic way of providing a mandate for the Chairman of the Liaison Committee.

It is worth noting that it has not always been the case that the Committee has elected its own Chairman from among the ranks of Select Committee Chairs. In fact, as recently as 2010, when the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham was Leader of the House, a Member who was not a pre-existing Select Committee Chairman was the Liaison Committee Chairman, in accordance with an earlier, similar motion agreed by the House.

The Government respect the work of the Select Committees of this House and their independence in holding the Government to account. Today’s motion will allow the Liaison Committee to begin its work. As is right, the House can now decide whether the motion is agreeable, including whether the chairmanship be taken up by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex. I hope we can achieve a resolution today and allow the Liaison Committee to begin its important work in scrutinising the Government and supporting other Committees in this House. I commend this motion to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Thank you. We have a very short time left for this debate, so I must ask that every speaker now takes no more than three minutes. I call Valerie Vaz, who is asked to speak for no more than three minutes.

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[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP) [V]]

I also wish to support the amendment. It is a fundamental tenet of democratic systems that the legislature should be separate from the Executive. Our role as an elected Chamber should be to make laws and scrutinise how the Government implement them. Our ability to do that depends upon having people who will speak out with independent mind and be prepared to criticise the Government, even when they might be in the same party.

Our Select Committee system is not perfect, but time and again, Committee reports have held the Government to account and even led to a change in policy. To their credit, these reports have often been fronted by Chairs who belong to the same party as the Government. This process is built upon Committees and their Chairs being appointed by Parliament—by elected Members— rather than by the Government. Put bluntly, if someone owes their position to an appointment by the Government of the day, they will be unlikely to be as forthright in their criticism of that Government. Few people bite the hand that feeds them.

The Leader of the House’s proposal will fundamentally change the relationship between Parliament and Government. This has nothing to do with the individual concerned, but everything to do with how he is appointed. If this goes through and the Committee is led by a Government placement, it effectively means that they will be marking their own homework.

Many Parliaments have an Executive—in mainland Europe, it is commonly called a bureau—that can act when Parliament is in recess or otherwise unable to meet. We do not, and I wonder whether our experience of the current emergency should lead us to conclude that we might have been better prepared if we had. Some will feel that the Liaison Committee might fulfil that role, but if anyone hopes that the Committee might act as some sort of interlocutor between Parliament and Government, this proposal will fatally compromise that ambition. A body led by a Government appointee who relies upon not distressing the Government in order to keep that job cannot and will not speak up for a critical or inquisitive Parliament.

Earlier today, we considered the Government’s proposals to abandon any facility for Members to take part in parliamentary proceedings remotely during the current health emergency. Agreeing to that was a mistake that we will come to regret. Preventing MPs from working from home will reduce, not enhance, their ability to scrutinise the Government. It will effectively disbar and discriminate against those who are sick or vulnerable, and it will force others to choose between representing their constituents or putting their health and the health of others at risk.

There is a pattern emerging here. It shows a Government trying to mute criticism by procedural means, a Government running scared of accountability, and it is not a good look. This proposal should be rejected and the Liaison Committee should be allowed to get to work and elect a Chair from among its members, all of whom have been elected by and are accountable to this Chamber. To do otherwise—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Thank you.

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[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab) [V]]

I beg to move amendment (a), leave out paragraph (3) and insert—

“(3) The chair of the Liaison Committee shall be a current chair of a Select Committee.”.

This amendment stands in my name and the names of many other Members of this House.

It would have been best if today we could have been agreeing to set up the Liaison Committee to take scrutiny into the heart of Government. As the Government make thousands of decisions that are literally a matter of life and death, the challenge and transparency afforded by scrutiny is important as never before. Better scrutiny means better decisions, and we all need the Government to be the best they can be right now. But instead of agreeing, we have the Government undermining the Liaison Committee at the very time they are setting it up, by imposing the Chair.

It should not be for the Government to decide the terms by which they are accountable; that should be for Parliament. Why are the Government doing this? A confident Government would have nothing to fear from robust, independent scrutiny. This move will weaken Parliament, but, even more, it is a sign of weakness from the Government. When Labour was in government and I was Leader of the House, we brought in secret ballots for Select Committee Chairs precisely in order to liberate them from control by the Whips and the dead hand of patronage. This Government imposition turns the clock back to the bad old days.

The Leader of the House is supposed to be the Leader of the House as a whole, but he can spare us the pretence that this is somehow the will of the House—that this is somehow extending democracy. There is only one name to vote for today, chosen by the Government, and there is no secret ballot. For the first time, we could end up having a Chair of the Liaison Committee who has the support of only one party in the House—the governing party. Although it is House business, Government Whips have been at work to such an extent that many on their own Back Benchers do not even realise that it is actually a free vote. I hope that Members will vote for my amendment. If the Government succeed in defeating it, it will be a bad day for the House for sure, but it will be a shameful day for the Government.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The right hon. and learned Lady has moved her amendment, so the question is that the amendment be made, and because of the shortage of time, I have to ask the Leader of the House to conclude the debate.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Within this House, one always knows that it is a weak argument when it is overstated, and I have to say that I have never heard a more overstated argument than that which we have received from the Opposition Benches.

The idea that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) is not one of most independent-minded Members of this House is patently absurd. He has stood up for this House, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) has pointed out, throughout his parliamentary career. One of the threads running through the career of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex is that he has stood up for the interests of the House of Commons, be that in ensuring that the sovereignty of the House of Commons and of Parliament generally is maintained, or ensuring that the House of Commons was not overwhelmed by a shift of power to the House of Lords. He has held Ministers to account, and I am glad that the Chief Whip has come into the Chamber because my hon. Friend has been the bane of the life of Chief Whips since he was elected in 1992. It is therefore well known that he will be independent minded.

I also think it is peculiar to suggest that a vote of the whole House is less democratic than a vote of the clique within the House. That obviously cannot be true. Allowing the whole House to vote is the most democratic form we have. In this House, we boldly express our opinion publicly so that our voters know precisely what we think. We do not need to hide away in the shadows. We are happy to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex is the right person for this job and that is why he has support.

I would say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) that constitutionally he does not fully appreciate how the system works. The Executive and the legislature have a symbiotic relationship. The Executive is drawn from the legislature. We are not like the United States, where there is no interconnection. Therefore, we always have in this House, and always have done going back into the mists of time, a relationship between the Executive and legislature, but that does not mean that the votes of the legislature are not democratic votes. They clearly and self-evidently are.

Moving on to the amendment and why I oppose it on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, it is very straightforward. We are widening democracy, widening scrutiny and allowing the whole House to come to a decision on who should chair the Liaison Committee. We are taking away that decision, admittedly, from a smaller group to give it to a larger group, which is the proper thing to be doing.

Nobody, not one person who has spoken today, has suggested that my hon. Friend is anything other than impartial—[Interruption.] I hear various chunterings from the Opposition Benches. The principle of the House deciding is the most ancient principle of the House of Commons. That is the right way for us to do it. We decide by our vote. That is the art of democracy and this is the right procedure to be using to ensure that happens. [Interruption.] Oh, we have a chunter, “There’s only one candidate.” Did anybody else decide to amend the motion to suggest another candidate? Perhaps Opposition Members do not know how the procedures of Parliament work. May I give them a little bit of advice? If they are ever in any doubt as to how the procedures of the House work, there are many able, hard-working and thoughtful Clerks who will give them advice and they can work out how to put down amendments, but no other name came forward. Nobody else had any confidence in any other Member to do this job, which I know will be done extraordinarily well by my hon. Friend.

I happen to know that actually the Government have appointed someone who will be so independent-minded that if anyone thinks that he will be an easy ride, that person is mistaken. I commend the motion unamended to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I must now conclude the debate and put the question in accordance with the Order of today. Before I put the question, I confirm that Mr Speaker’s final determination is that the question on the amendment should be decided by remote Division. There is therefore no need for me to collect the voices, or for Members present in the Chamber to shout aye or no. The question is that the amendment be made. The question falls to be decided by a remote Division and the Clerk will know initiate the Division on MemberHub.

The House proceeded to a remote Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The remote voting period has now finished. I will announce the result of the Division shortly. I will suspend the House for five minutes until the result can be announced.

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On resuming—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I can now announce the result of the remote Division.

Question, That the amendment be made.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before I put the question on the motion on Liaison Committee membership, as on the Order Paper, I remind Members that Mr Speaker’s provisional determination was that the question will not be decided by a remote Division. That is also the final determination.

Main Question put and agreed to.