Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Bone

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Peter Bone)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought it might be appropriate to draw the House’s attention to a small adjustment to the business tomorrow. Given the progress of the Committee of the whole House, we will now take Third Reading of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill tomorrow. A supplementary programme motion will be tabled tonight to provide an extra hour of debate tomorrow.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I will take any points of order further to that point of order. I see that there are none. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. It is very useful for the House to know of the change that will be made to tomorrow’s Order Paper.

Refugees from Ukraine

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Bone

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This will take one minute and 30 seconds. It is important that the public realise that sometimes, when the House is not packed, it is not because it is not interested in what is happening. Today, there are Ukrainian MPs in the Palace, and hundreds of MPs have gone to see them. The last debate was very important and well attended, and those speaking in it made their constructive points in a very sensible way. We should, though, make the public aware that there were other things going on in the House at the same time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am happy to give him a direct answer. First, I agree with him entirely. It was noted earlier this afternoon that although we were having an extremely important and topical debate about Ukrainian refugees, the Benches were sparsely occupied. It is important to note—the hon. Gentleman put this very well—that in another room at that very moment, there were four Ukrainian Members of Parliament, who are most welcome here. Many colleagues, rather than being in the Chamber, had gone to that meeting, which I gather was extremely fruitful.

Business without Debate

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Bone

Friday 14th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have just gone through a long list of Bills and dates have been given. Many of the Bills are similar—for instance, the BBC Licence Fee (Abolition) Bill and the BBC Licence Fee Non-Payment (Decriminalisation for Over-75s) Bill. Is there a possibility in future that these Bills could be combined or grouped together so we could debate them together, which would speed things up, and we could actually get to the BBC Licence Fee (Abolition) Bill and to other Bills?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, but I must say to him that if there were two Bills before the House at approximately the same time that had similar purposes and could be combined into one Bill, the way to do that would be at the outset, when advice could be given by the learned Clerks as to how to formulate a short title of a single Bill that would encapsulate all of the measures in both or all the Bills that the hon. Gentleman or any other hon. Member may have in mind. However, at this stage in the proceedings, when a Bill has started and is continuing its progress and another Bill is fairly similar, there is no reasonable way of combining them, except of course that, if they came into Committee, a Member could submit amendments to Bill No. 1 that would encapsulate Bill No. 2, if that was in order and they really were for the same or very similar purposes. I hope that that has helped the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Bone]

Further to that point of order,

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. That is really helpful. So, for instance, if I spoke to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), when my BBC Licence Fee (Abolition) Bill went into Committee, I could incorporate his Bill through amendments. Would that clash with the long title? I am not sure, but it sounds like a very good idea to speed things up.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

If it clashed with the long title, an amendment would also have to be submitted to the long title. If it were considered to be in order according to “Erskine May”, which the learned Clerks upstairs are well capable of judging, then it would be quite possible to amend the long title, and thereby bring the Bills together. However, on the matter of timetabling, it would have no effect.

Prime Minister (Temporary Replacement) Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Bone

2nd reading
Friday 14th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bone]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. That line has been argued forever. I am not in the position to go back and ask who would make the decision in the situation that I described, but if my hon. Friend wants to intervene to tell me, I would be most interested. She cannot, because it is impossible: there is no designated survivor, as she calls it. I am not talking about something that might not happen and I will later give a clear example of what happened, why there was a problem and the two reasons why there was a problem.

Let me turn to the Bill, which is very simple and has only two clauses, the first of which deals with the situation I have just been talking about and the second of which says the Bill applies to the whole United Kingdom. Nothing in my Bill would prevent Her Majesty from—[Interruption.] Did I hear the Chinese, who have got in again?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. If something has been heard—I did not hear it—can it be either repeated or ignored? Was something said?

[Mr Bone]

I think it was an electronic device heckling me and I cannot give way to an electronic device.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

We will not be having that. Let us make sure that all electronic devices are disabled.

[Mr Bone]

Let me go back to where I was. The Bill has two clauses and one schedule. Clause 2 says the Bill applies to the whole United Kingdom, clause 1 deals with the detail and the schedule lists the order in which people would take over as Prime Minister. The list starts with the person who is designated Deputy Prime Minister, then goes to the person designated the First Secretary of State, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and all the way down to paragraph 1(w), which lists the Chief Whip, and paragraph 1(x), which lists the Attorney General. Actually, I made a mistake with that list: I should obviously have put the Chief Whip last. Nevertheless, under the Bill someone would automatically be in charge as acting Prime Minister, with all the powers to decide what happened. In the case I was talking about, that person could say, “Yes, you shoot down that aeroplane,” or “No, you don’t,” so there would be no confusion.

Business of the House

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Bone

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It has occurred to me that I have failed miserably to get the Leader of the House to grant debates in Government time, so I have thought of a wheeze.

Will the Leader of the House kindly come to my constituency of Wellingborough and Rushden in the east midlands? He can whizz up from St Pancras on the newly electrified line. As he gets out at the station, he will see the beginning of the electrification north to Sheffield. We can pick him up and take him over the new railway bridge; through the new development of Stanton Cross, to see the new houses; on to the wonderful double roundabout at Chowns Mill, which will be opened officially this week; along the A45; past the new magnificent Rushden Lakes leisure facility; further along, seeing on our left-hand side the Wellingborough prison that will be open in the new year—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Is this going to go on for a very long time?

[Mr Bone]

I must get him there, Madam Deputy Speaker. We can go up through Wellingborough; go up where the new Isham bypass will be built; see where the new Boris hospital is to be built; and then meet Jason Smithers, the new leader of the new unitary council. Then might I persuade the Leader of the House to have, in Government time, a debate on what levelling up means?

NHS Update

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Bone

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Finally, we go by video link to Peter Bone.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con) [V]]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; we much appreciate you extending this session.

Before any major change is made in the NHS, there is a full impact assessment done to see how it affects wider society. Would the Care Minister be able to say when last week, when the statutory instrument on compulsory vaccination of care staff was put before the House, she had the opportunity to read the SI, the explanatory notes and the full impact assessment? If there was no full impact assessment, why did the Government proceed in laying it before Parliament?

Electoral Commission

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Bone

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con) [V]]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) and the speakers before him, who clearly made the point that the panel has done a very good job in the selection of Mr John Pullinger.

The chairman of the Electoral Commission is an extremely important appointment. This evening, we have to decide whether a humble address be presented to Her Majesty requesting her to appoint John Pullinger as chairman of the Electoral Commission, with effect from 1 May 2021 to 30 April 2025. In making this decision, we should consider two factors: first, whether Mr John Pullinger is a fit and proper person to chair the Electoral Commission; and, secondly, whether there will be an Electoral Commission for him to chair until 30 April 2025. In helping me to consider this issue, I met Bob Posner, the chief executive of the Electoral Commission, and Louise Edwards, the commission’s director of regulation, on Monday 1 February. I also took the opportunity to watch the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission on Monday 1 March, which held an appointments hearing with Mr Pullinger.

I would first like to say that I have absolutely no criticism of Mr John Pullinger. I do not know him personally, but his experience speaks for itself. His time as the House of Commons Librarian will certainly stand him in good stead when it comes to building a rapport with Members from across the House. His role as national statistician shows that he can run an organisation that is in trouble. I therefore think the answer to my first question is that he is a fit and proper person to carry out the role.

However, I am seriously concerned that Mr Pullinger is joining an organisation that is in very serious trouble and that I do not believe will exist in its current format by the end of this year. How can we appoint someone to an organisation that will, in my opinion, disappear in a few months? The Electoral Commission is politically corrupt, unfit for purpose and is damaging democracy in this country. The chairman of the Electoral Commission must set the overall strategic goals for the organisation and ensure public confidence in the institution and democracy. Unfortunately, I think this will be an impossible task for Mr Pullinger.

Given the state of affairs at the Electoral Commission, rebuilding public trust and respect among people from across all political persuasions will not be possible while it is in its current form. I am not seeking to block Mr Pullinger’s appointment, but he is joining an organisation that is being investigated by two parliamentary Committees: the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. The previous chairman’s request to extend his tenure was turned down by the Speaker’s Committee, and the commission has been widely criticised across the political spectrum. How can Mr Pullinger truly change this failed organisation in its current form, when all trust and respect for it has been lost? The answer is that he cannot.

I have a great deal of personal experience of working with the Electoral Commission, and Members of this House will know that I have raised my concerns time and again through oral and written questions, including questions to the Member who speaks on behalf of the Speaker’s Committee, to the Leader of the House, to the Prime Minister and to the Select Committee. My own close experience of the Electoral Commission goes back to the winter of 2015 when I founded Grassroots Out alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove). Grassroots Out—or GO—was a nationwide campaign whose aim was for us to leave the European Union. We worked with individuals of all political persuasions and none, and travelled the length and breadth of the United Kingdom spreading our message of a better life for the UK outside the European Union. The GO campaign was not a party political organisation.

From the very beginning of the campaign, before we even finalised the name, we were in discussions with the Electoral Commission. I held meetings with officials in Parliament and at the head office. We filled in its pre-poll reports, and we broke off campaigning to hold meetings with it. We went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that we were correctly observing the electoral regulations—which were often extremely unclear—even in relation to putting our imprint on ties, umbrellas and pens. Throughout the campaign, we kept up a dialogue with the commission to ensure that we were abiding by the rules, and at no point were we told of any wrongdoing or any concerns that the commission had with the campaign. So I have probably had more detailed experience of the Electoral Commission than any other Member in this House. When the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016, there was—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am not stopping the hon. Gentleman; I am merely drawing his attention to the fact that this is a very narrow motion. It is specifically about the appointment of Mr John Pullinger as the chair of the Electoral Commission. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman wishes to draw to the attention of the House his concerns about the Electoral Commission, but I do hope that he is not going to give us a history of the actions of the commission with which he personally has been engaged over these last several years. Everybody here present is nodding; we all remember these matters. It has also been made clear that the Committee that took the decision to appoint Mr John Pullinger was well aware of the matters that the hon. Gentleman is bringing before the House, so I hope that he is going to be brief in his description of his concerns, which have been noted by the Leader of the House and everyone else who is present.

[Mr Bone]

Of course, Madam Deputy Speaker; my remarks are in fact going to be brief, but I want to draw the House’s attention to some things, and to one particular thing that Members may not be aware of, which my experience will lead to. I hope that this will help the House to make a decision on whether we are right to make this appointment for such a long period. That is my question; it is not about Mr Pullinger, but about whether we are right to make the appointment for such a long period—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is well aware that Mr Speaker did not did not select his amendment about the time. Therefore, the House is considering not the length of time of the appointment but merely whether the appointment should be made. We are not considering how long it should be made for, or any other circumstances surrounding it. This is a simple question of yes or no.

[Mr Bone]

Absolutely, Madam Deputy Speaker. I just want to point out my concerns before I decide how to vote on the motion, and before I listen to what the Leader of the House says in conclusion.

My challenge for Mr Pullinger is whether he will get the commission to apologise unreservedly for the wicked and bullying way in which it treated responsible people. Hon. Members may not know this, but each campaign group had to have a responsible person. They were not the political leaders or the politicians; they were not the David Camerons and the Nigel Farages; they were not the people on the television screens; they were not the people making political decisions. They were honest, hard-working people of great integrity who were making sure that the campaigns kept to the election rules.

I want to concentrate for a brief moment on four: Richard Murphy for Grassroots Out, Liz Bilney for Better for the Country, Darren Grimes for BeLeave and Alan Halsall for Vote Leave. I have worked with two of them, and I know one very well as a personal friend, but what linked them all was their great integrity—yet the Electoral Commission set out deliberately to destroy that integrity.

That is the challenge that I want Mr Pullinger to address. The individuals were threatened with criminal prosecution, their names were rubbished, their professional reputations were attacked and they had to endure the worst malicious treatment from a state-funded organisation that I have ever known. I do not say that lightly. In 50 years in politics, I have never known a state-funded regulator to act in such a way. Remember that these people were not guilty of any wrongdoing. Quite the contrary: they helped to facilitate the greatest democratic debate—

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is giving us a long history that does not appear to be relevant to the very precise “yes or no” matter before us now, which—as on the Order Paper—is whether Mr John Pullinger should or should not be appointed. I cannot allow the hon. Gentleman to give us a history lesson at this point. I hope that he will bring his remarks to a conclusion.

[Mr Bone]

Madam Deputy Speaker, you are bringing me to the very crux of the matter. I have four points for Mr Pullinger to answer; I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to respond to them, since obviously Mr Pullinger is not here.

In my opinion, if Mr Pullinger is to be the next chairman of the Electoral Commission, he must accept that what happened in the past to responsible people was unacceptable. He must offer a personal apology to the responsible people—to Richard, Liz, Darren and Alan. He must accept that the Electoral Commission acted in a totally unacceptable way and that it must offer compensation. I hope he will.

I listened very carefully to what the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission put to Mr Pullinger at the public hearing. He answered its questions very well—my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) referred to his answer about impartiality—but we cannot forget the past when we decide the future. Mr Pullinger said that one of the Electoral Commission’s biggest mistakes over the past few years related to

“bureaucracy and timeliness—some things seem to take an inordinate length of time”.

I could not agree more. The Electoral Commission would demand answers from responsible people, but then take months and months to reply. Those delay tactics left the individuals with so much anxiety and concern, even though they did absolutely nothing wrong.

The question tonight is whether we can appoint a chairman to an organisation that has failed so badly and has treated people so badly. If I am right that the commission will be split in two later this year, which half will Mr Pullinger chair? Will it be the bit that is responsible for regulation and running elections, or will he be responsible for a separate organisation that does enforcement? At the moment, the Electoral Commission is investigator, judge, jury and executioner. That cannot continue. However, we are being asked to appoint somebody to that organisation, which is likely to be split. I ask the Leader of the House whether, in the contract that is being given to Mr Pullinger, this situation has been considered, because we cannot go on as we have.

In conclusion, we have a number of people who were bullied by the state. I take bullying very seriously, but this is the sort of thing that happens in totalitarian regimes, not in this United Kingdom. We pride ourselves on our democracy. I think Mr John Pullinger is an excellent choice of chairman, but as the chairman of a new Electoral Commission, so I am going to make my decision on how to vote at the end of this debate, after hearing from the Leader of the House.

Prime Minister (Nomination) and Cabinet (Appointment)

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Bone

Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), with his usual skill, introduces a Scottish National party policy that sounds attractive but is completely and utterly useless. It is tradition to find something on which we agree with the previous speaker, and I agreed with him totally when he was gracious enough to say how much the House welcomed the recovery of the Prime Minister after his serious illness.

Before dealing with the issue itself—[Interruption.] I do not see a clock running, so am I allowed an unlimited amount of time?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. For the avoidance of doubt, no, the hon. Gentleman is allowed 10 minutes. There is a mistake in the clock not running; he now has approximately eight and a half minutes.

[Mr Bone]

Why is this ten-minute rule Bill being introduced now, and what are we being asked to do today? We are not being asked to approve the content of the Bill; we are being asked to give leave for it to be introduced as a private Member’s Bill. The hon. Gentleman could have done that in February. There are 130 Bills that Members introduced properly, prior to this Bill being introduced. So I thought, “Well, let’s ask the Library,” and the Library says:

“Ten Minute Rule bills are often an opportunity for Members to voice an opinion on a subject or aspect of existing legislation, rather than a serious attempt to get a bill passed.”

As usual, the House of Commons Library is correct.

Later tonight we will consider motion 7 on the Order Paper, which will move our private Members’ Bills back again. I agree entirely with the Government that that is the proper thing to do, given the covid crisis, but it means that we will have September, October, November, January, February and March to get through 130 private Members’ Bills. This is an opportunity to throw out a Bill now that would only clog up the system later on.

Let me turn to the gist of the Bill. It is an interesting way of pretending that sovereignty does not exist, but sovereignty rests with the Queen. The Queen is sovereign and the sovereign appoints the Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman has not produced an actual Bill today—what he has in his hand is a dummy Bill—but I looked back to see what his previous Bill said. He was very careful not to go into the detail, and I am not surprised. In normal times, if this Bill became an Act of Parliament, the House of Commons, with a Government majority of 80, would of course nominate the leader of the largest party to be Prime Minister, in the normal way. I had to go back to April 1940 for when we had a Prime Minister who was not the leader of the governing party, and that was only for six months, during the second world war. So why is this clever politician introducing this Bill? Let us think about the detail. He says that the House of Commons would nominate the Prime Minister. I thought, “Well, that’s strange—the House of Commons?” And then I looked a bit further, and it is the Speaker of the House of Commons who would nominate the Prime Minister after the House voted.

Then I thought, hang on a minute—what would have happened when my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) resigned and we had Speaker Bercow in the Chair, if this proposition had been in place? It would not have been impossible to see a situation whereby the Opposition combined to vote for the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), and maybe one or two disenchanted Conservatives joined that vote—and then Mr Speaker would have been proposing to the Queen that the right hon. Member for Islington North be Prime Minister of a Conservative Government that nobody on the Government Benches would support and everyone on the Opposition Benches would. That is a nice try, but it honestly does not work. For that reason, the Bill should not be given leave to proceed.

My Government are a very fair Government, and I doubt that they will interfere with the voting today because they like the House to make decisions on principle, not because the Whips are telling us what to do. But I hope that Back-Bench Members will oppose this ten-minute rule Bill, because it has been brought here to make a point. It needs to be thrown out now and not to be part of the ongoing private Members’ Bill process.

The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire did move on to two other issues in his Bill that do need more consideration. The first is the question of what happens and who takes over if the Prime Minister is incapacitated. That is a very fair point; we must always have a Prime Minister. When the current Prime Minister fell ill, the Government—thankfully, just before he was admitted to hospital—came up with a schedule of Members who would be Prime Minister if something happened to the current Prime Minister. In fact, the First Secretary of State effectively did become Prime Minister. And if the First Secretary of State had fallen ill, there was a whole list of people after him.

Now, I already have a Bill before the House—the Prime Minister (Temporary Replacement) Bill—to deal with this situation. It proposes a fixed system, so we would know in advance what would happen if the Prime Minister were incapacitated. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support that Bill on 30 October. The second part of his own Bill is not necessary and is flawed, because there would be a delay between the Prime Minister being incapacitated and a new one being appointed.

Where I find more interest is subject of the appointment of Cabinet Ministers. As I understand it, under the hon. Gentleman’s Bill, the approval of the House would be required before a Member could become a Cabinet Minister. I suppose if one goes back a few years to, say, 1707 when this House introduced—[Interruption.] What happened then was that a Member had to resign their seat if they became a Cabinet Minister. That is not a bad idea. Of course, most of those Cabinet Ministers stood for election and were not opposed; one or two of them took the opportunity to sneak off to safer seats at that moment. That situation was brought to an end in 1926, by a private Member’s Bill.

I do not suggest that we go back to that time, but the hon. Gentleman does have a point when it comes to Select Committees holding confirmation hearings for newly appointed Government Ministers. Departmental Select Committees could hold such hearings and say whether they thought the person was fit and proper. Now, I am sure that that would always be the case as long as there were a Conservative Government, but it might not be if we had a Labour Government in power. I would not necessarily say that that such a process should be mandatory, but it would be a good idea for Select Committees to look at it. If the Select Committees played that role, it would force the Government to form them much earlier in a Parliament than they sometimes do.

There is some merit in the proposals that I have just discussed, but the fundamental issue of allowing Speaker Bercow to nominate to the Queen the right hon. Gentleman for Islington North—what an absurd idea! For that alone, leave to bring in this Bill should not be granted.

Question put (Standing Order No. 23).

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

For the sake of clarification, we will close the doors 12 minutes after the commencement of the vote, which was two minutes and 30 seconds ago.

Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Bone

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. Arithmetic is my strong point: I had three amendments. One has been withdrawn. That means that I have two amendments left. It does not change the constitutional position.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was here at 7 o’clock and it did not appear that the Government moved the business of the House motion that was due to be moved at 7 o’clock. It is probably a technical matter, but it now seems to me that if there were to be a Division on the current Bill, it would be a deferred Division. Is that correct?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

No, it is not correct. There was no need for the 7 o’clock motion to be moved, because of the terms of the business of the House motion relating to today.

Proceedings during the Pandemic

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Bone

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bone]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know that it is unparliamentary for someone to filibuster, but when there is a 90-minute debate and it has taken this long—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I do not need his point of order. I have been trying to move the debate forward, but Members are so excited at being back here and being allowed to intervene that they are doing it far too often. No more interventions.