House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He strikes at the critical failure of the legislation, which is that really the Government are seeking to remove Members of the upper House who happen not to take the Labour Whip. What we all agree on—or what I hope we all agree on—is that the role of the Lords is that of a chamber of scrutiny, and we must welcome more expert scrutiny. We have seen from the behaviour, attendance and work of hereditary peers that they are an intrinsic part of that scrutiny, so it is highly suspicious that the Labour party should seek to remove them. Indeed, if we set the precedent that the Government of the day can remove Members of one House because they do not agree with them, where will it end? Those Cross Bencher hereditary peers who will be axed by the measures have, as far as I can see, done an excellent job, yet they are not being given another way out such as that suggested by my right hon. Friend.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman will know that provisions in the 1999 Act stipulate a specific number of hereditary peers by party affiliation, making the Lords the only place where the party of a by-election victor is guaranteed before a vote has been cast. He is worried about a loss of expertise in the Lords as hereditary peers are expelled. If those peers stay—I do not think that they should—does he acknowledge that the ringfence protecting party political positions ought to be removed?

[Alex Burghart]

My point is more that the Government are seeking to remove highly experienced people without offering another way out. We would have been happy to debate that, but we are instead seeing an attempt to deliberately cut out a group of peers from the constitution.

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[Gareth Snell]

rose—

[Alex Burghart]

I will give way one more time and then I will endeavour to conclude my remarks.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for taking a second intervention. Is he suggesting that life peers—I declare an interest in that my partner is a life peer—are unable to undertake the role of scrutiny? Even with these modest reforms, which are a stepping stone towards greater reform, my party will still be only the third largest party in the House of Lords, while his will still be the largest by some margin. Is he honestly saying that his life peers are unable to take scrutiny seriously?

[Alex Burghart]

I am delighted to hear that the hon. Gentleman has married so well. Of course, life peers do a fantastic job of scrutiny—they do so every day, and I enjoy reading their lordships’ Hansard. What we are talking about is a group of 88 hereditary peers, who have done a very good job in scrutinising Government legislation, but who are being removed, through no fault of their own, simply because they do not fit with the Labour’s party’s views. We believe that that is wrong.

I turn now to amendment 25 in my name, which concerns the very simple Conservative principle that constitutional change should not be rushed, and should certainly not be proposed for political advantage. We have inherited a constitution that has evolved through the generations and has the distinction of working. The current constitution of the other place has been effective in bringing expertise and a degree of independence to the work of legislative scrutiny. Like much of the uncodified British constitution, one might not have created such a system from scratch, but the tried-and-tested checks and balances of the House of Lords have complemented the work of the elected Commons.

The Lords does not claim to be a democratic Chamber, and that is the point: our House has primacy. We can see the dangers of ill-though-through constitutional change. None of us in this place will forget the difficulties caused by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, a foolish measure introduced by the coalition Government that created all manner of unintended consequences. It was rightly repealed by the Conservatives in the last Parliament to reinstate tried and tested long-standing conventions. Let that be a warning to the Government as they meddle, in the name of petty politics, with long-standing conventions that work. Walter Bagehot eloquently described the “dignified” and “efficient” elements of our constitution. In a sense, the hereditary peers represent both thanks to the way in which they diligently scrutinise legislation. Labour must take care that pulling on one thread—in this case, that of the hereditary peers—does not unravel a great deal more.

Amendment 25 seeks to ensure that there is proper scrutiny of the changes to the composition of our legislature. It makes the simple request that a Joint Committee of both Houses should be allowed to scrutinise and report on the Government’s so-called “immediate modernisation” plans, and that this place should agree before legislation comes into force. That plan would be led by the Conservative principle that constitutional change should not be rushed but carefully considered, and implemented only if the House is confident that it will work.

Amendment 26, which stands in my name, seeks clarity on the issue of disputed peerage claims. However, I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said, and I understand that existing mechanisms are in place. For that reason, we will not press it.

To conclude, we on the Conservative Benches think that this Bill is a sham of reform. It is fundamentally misconceived, focusing on the composition of the other place rather than on how we can ensure that it best performs its vital role of scrutiny. This is a Government and a Prime Minister who do not stand up to scrutiny—a Government led by politics, not by principles. My amendments seek to reinsert some principles into this process: that promises to both Parliament and the electorate should be kept, and that we should legislate only for what works, not for political advantage. I see no reason why the Government cannot accept the amendments today.

[Gareth Snell]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Madam Chair. I will keep my comments brief, because I know that that will entertain the Committee more. [Hon. Members: “More!”] I have not started yet—give me time. I very much enjoyed the Bill’s Second Reading, which is why I have come back for a second go.

I genuinely welcome the new reforming zeal of the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), and I believe there are merits to some of the amendments that bear his name. I am glad that the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) has said that those amendments are part of our manifesto, because they are, as is this Bill. I am sure that means that he will want the Salisbury convention to be accepted in the other place when the Bill reaches it, meaning that Opposition Members in the House of Lords will make no attempt to prevent its successful passage. I am sure that at some point in today’s proceedings, an Opposition Front Bencher will be able to confirm for the record that the Bill will pass smoothly once it has passed this House.

We have just heard the importance of the primacy of this House stated eloquently by the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart). This House is going to make a decision on the Bill today—to decide whether we believe there should be a role for hereditary peers in the House of Lords—and it will then be sent to the House of Lords. Given the importance of convention, history and statute, I am sure that he will be able to confirm that the House of Lords will happily pass it, without any attempts by Opposition Members to amend it. I doubt it, but I hope so.

The point of the Bill, and the reason why I believe it deserves support from all sides of the House, is that—as my hon. Friend the Minister pointed out—this is the first step in a package of House of Lords reform.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is a serious individual on the Government Benches, and I respect him very much, but does he not understand that given the delicate set of constitutional arrangements we have, it is not unreasonable to expect the Government to come forward with a plan that sets out several steps, taking us on the journey that they intend to go on, with some substance behind it? Given the number of years the Government have had since the previous changes over a quarter of a century ago, it is not unreasonable to expect a little more detail on those second, third and fourth steps, or a timetable.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and to a degree, I agree. That is why we set out in our manifesto the package of reforms and changes that we hope to see made to the other place during this Parliament, in order to deliver on the promises we made in the election. He is absolutely right to say that constitutional reform is a delicate thing; that is why it is important that we make these reforms with consideration and in small steps, to make sure that the unintended consequences of large-scale reform are not felt.

The Conservative party made modest reforms during previous Parliaments, such as giving Members of the House of Lords the ability to retire from it. That was a small change, but one with consequential impacts—far more Members have left the House of Lords under that provision than will be impacted by the provisions in this Bill. That was done thoughtfully, carefully, slowly and, I think, consensually.

Similarly, I think that the principle of this Bill—that hereditary peers will no longer have the right to sit in the House of Lords—has already been established in this House. None of the amendments that have been tabled today seeks to overturn that; none of them seeks to make a case for the continuation of hereditary peers. As such, the consensus that the right hon. Gentleman rightly talks about exists in this Bill. The more we seek to tack on to the Bill—taking other elements of constitutional reform and adding them to the Bill—the more we risk that consensus falling apart. We risk this House not having a settled position, creating the opportunity for potential wrecking amendments. I do not suggest that Opposition Members are tabling wrecking amendments, but they could be tabled elsewhere to completely flatline what is a very modest and sensible reform.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very reasonable speech. Would it be fair to say that he means this is almost a case of going for the low-hanging fruit on which everybody has a measure of agreement, while recognising that future steps may be a lot more complex and potentially dangerous if we get them wrong?

There is one aspect that is not of itself an argument for keeping the hereditary peers, but is something that will be lost if and when they go. That is, the hereditary peers are one group of people who are not appointed subject to prime ministerial patronage. Without straying beyond the scope of today’s debate, could the hon. Gentleman give us an inkling of whether something like putting the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a statutory basis is a reform that the Government might consider, bearing in mind some of the controversial cases where people have been imposed on the House of Lords in defiance of the commission’s preferences?

[Gareth Snell]

I could not possibly begin to offer an opinion on the thoughts of the Government, but I know that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will have heard that question.

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

He should be in it!

[Gareth Snell]

I know when to move on. [Laughter.] I would also never dare to call the hereditary peers low-hanging fruit, because that would be slightly disrespectful to them, but I understand the tenor and the tone of what the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) is saying, and I think he is right. This is about starting with something on which there is broad consensus and where the impact on the other House will change our constitutional set-up, but not in a way that will ultimately be detrimental to the important scrutiny role of the House of Lords.

I agree with the right hon. Member about the important role of the House of Lords Appointments Commission and the robustness with which its advice should be treated. Without wishing to go down the route of political point scoring, there is something to be said for independent verification of an individual’s suitability for that place, and how that ought to be respected and put on a footing that would potentially mean that incidents like those we have seen under previous Prime Ministers would not recur. Again, I would love to be able to make a commitment in this Chamber, but the only things I can commit to are those relating to my constituency and my own personal opinions.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

The hon. Member spoke about the need for consensus. Has he read new clauses 1 and 2, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), which would remove the bishops from the upper House? I am sure that is something on which there is great agreement on the Government Benches. Does the hon. Member feel able to support new clauses 1 and 2?

[Gareth Snell]

The hon. Gentleman has highlighted a great example of where on the face on it, there may seem to be consensus, but I fear the immediate impact would not be as simple as he thinks. We have an established Church in this country. The Church of England is an established Church—it is part of who we are. I fear that the removal of the bishops from the House of Lords would open up a whole series of other conversations about whether or not we still have an established Church. It would potentially open up questions about political and ecclesiastical overlap. Again, I think we should debate those things; we should have time to debate, discuss and consider the role of the clergy and whether it is right to have bishops in the House of Lords. I do not see why that has to be done through a tacked-on amendment to this Bill, but it is something we should discuss in the future.

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

We do not usually have so much debate in Staffordshire on these matters; we usually have a lot of consensus in Staffordshire. I want to clarify that the amendments that I seek to make to the Bill would not disestablish the Church of England, but would remove from our constitutional arrangements an anomaly—just as the Bill attempts to remove an anomaly.

[Gareth Snell]

The right hon. Gentleman is right: this is probably more Staffordshire than anybody needs to hear in this debate, so I will conclude my remarks momentarily.

I do not disagree with the necessary principle that the right hon. Gentleman is putting forward about whether or not bishops should be entitled to seats in the House of Lords by virtue of their being bishops. On Thursday, a Bill is to be debated that would amend the right of women bishops to sit in the House of Lords, because we have always, over time, gently updated and amended our constitution to ensure that it reflects the society we want to be. I would welcome an opportunity to properly debate and consider this matter. The right hon. Gentleman says that it is not his intention to disestablish the Church of England by the removal of the bishops, but there are consequences to these actions, which deserve more consideration and debate—

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

What are they?

[Gareth Snell]

The right hon. Gentleman asks, “What are they?” That is why we should have a debate in the future to give us an opportunity to explore that. Today, having had a Second Reading debate, we have the Committee stage of this Bill to look exclusively at the responsibilities of hereditary peers and the role they play in our democracy.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

Instead of saying that we need a debate in future on whether such a reform might risk disestablishment, will the hon. Gentleman explain what he considers to be the legal and constitutional consequences that would risk disestablishing the Church?

[Gareth Snell]

I think the very fact that we that we would be seeking to expel the bishops, who are the representatives of the Church of England, from the national legislature, would by its nature start a consideration of that process. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman may say that it does not, but he does not know that. I fear that a well-meaning amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge would create a more significant debate about the role of the Church in our country. Although we may want to have that debate, I am not sure it should be triggered on the back of an amendment to a short, tightly drafted Bill about the role of hereditary peers in the House of Lords. If the hon. Member for West Suffolk wants to bring something forward, I would be more than happy to talk to him about how I could support it, but it should not be tacked on to a Bill on which there is already clear consensus around the role and responsibilities of hereditary peers. That, I hope, deals with the point that he raised.

Finally, on Second Reading we heard a great deal about our manifesto and the Labour party’s commitment to House of Lords reform. The ’99 reforms were one of the most significant changes to our constitutional settlement that there had been for a very long time. It was not just about the expulsion of the hereditary peers, but the creation of the Lord Speaker and the removal of the Law Lords to sit in the Supreme Court. It was a package that came forward, over time, in a series of Bills to implement the commitment that we made at the ’97 election. That, for me, is the start of where we are today. We will put through the Bill that does the first part, bank that and then move on. I know that there is an appetite across the House for considerable House of Lords reform—that has been evident from Opposition speeches—but we need to bank what we have done and move forward.

I hope that today we shall pass the Bill through Committee unamended and on to Third Reading, so that it can make its way to the other place where, because of the commitment that I know the Minister will give in summing up later, the Salisbury convention will be engaged; that it can pass through the House of Lords quickly, without change; and that we can move on with the rest of the reform that we require.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I rise to speak in support of new clauses 7 and 8, which stand in my name, and their associated consequential amendments. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), simply because I think that much of what he said supports my amendments. Certainly some of the points he made, I shall be making also.

My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are proud that it is our party that has for decades led the call for reform of the House of Lords with a democratic mandate. The Bill is a welcome step forward, and one that we support. However, we do believe that broader and bolder reform of our upper Chamber is needed, which is why I have tabled these two new clauses to extend the powers of this legislation. The new clauses would finally see the House of Lords with a democratic mandate and would ensure that the House of Lords Appointments Commission could never again be sidestepped and ignored by an unscrupulous Government.

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[Sir Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. Friend and I agree on so many things, but perhaps I am just wanting to see this change happen. By adding new clause 4—introducing Labour’s manifesto commitment as part of this Bill—we can significantly reduce the size of the upper House and avoid the kind of intimate crush that he sets out.

[Gareth Snell]

I do not wish to pause the right hon. Gentleman while he is in the middle of his intimate crush, but as someone who is always a fan of a clause IV, I understand what he is trying to achieve with this new clause 4. However, I would put to him one point. Under new clause 4(2), participation in a Division would in itself not be the only thing required; a Member could simply turn up, be seen and take their seat, and they would not have to take part in a Division or contribute. So his new clause would not achieve what he is seeking. He will undoubtedly bring this measure back in a future Bill, so will he consider retrospective application? One of my worries is that a number of Members of the other House have not turned up for many weeks or months, and in fact there are some who over the last two and a half years have an attendance rate of less than 5%, so would it not be wrong for them simply to turn up now, get their tick and then wait eight weeks? If we were to say, “Let’s retrospectively apply this from today,” the right hon. Gentleman would have a huge clear-out of those who have not made any contributions so far, and given that they have not turned up so far, they would not be missing much.

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

I am getting excited that the hon. Member is discovering a little radicalism, because I always felt I was in his heart, but perhaps the eyes of the Whips have squeezed it out of him of late. The hon. Gentleman makes a very thoughtful and interesting point, and I would very much like to work on a cross-party basis to get the legislation into the best possible shape.

On minimum contributions, a number of peers in the upper House have continuously failed to make a significant contribution. There are routes for them to be able to exit out of the upper House, but they have chosen not to do so. That causes real problems and real challenges for the upper House, and new clause 4 would offer a way to tackle them.

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[Gareth Snell]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for being so generous and gracious with his time. He rightly points out that his new clauses 1 and 2 are not Labour party manifesto commitments, so he will understand why they could cause the Bill to become unstuck when the Salisbury convention is applied at the other end, as the Minister will confirm later. Has he used his position of power and influence to confirm that Conservative Members in the upper House, with their plurality and majority in most votes, will support new clauses 3 and 4, so that the Bill can still make its passage and deliver the one thing on which we have consensus?

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman flatters me by suggesting that I have any power. Once, as Chief Whip, I could have had a gentle nudge on the tiller to make things happen, but sadly the only army I can now bring to bear is me. I will happily do what I can on these important new clauses, and I will walk side-by-side with the Paymaster General, through the Lobby to deliver for his party on its manifesto commitment, but I am afraid that is the only commitment I can make, because I would not wish to over-promise.

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[Pete Wishart]

There is a point of principle behind our position on the House of Lords, and it is a simple word: democracy. We refuse to have anybody in the House of Lords because we believe that people should have an electoral mandate—democratic backing from the people of this country—to serve in the legislature. That is something on which the hon. Lady and I will never agree. I believe she is quite happy and satisfied that unelected peers continue to inhabit the other place.

My party is hopeful that the House of Lords might sometimes challenge Governments, and perhaps make them think again, but it always backs down. Any attempt to get the House of Lords to agree to any sort of principle is a waste of time.

[Gareth Snell]

The hon. Gentleman is clearly very pleased with himself and his amendments. The only seat as secure as a seat in the House of Lords is a seat at the top of a regional list for proportional representation. He has tabled a well-meaning amendment to prohibit any Member who has served in this Parliament or the last from seeking a seat in the House of Lords. Would he apply that to his own party, so that any Member who has served in this Parliament or the last is not eligible to seek nomination or election to the Scottish Parliament?

[Pete Wishart]

I say to the hon. Gentleman, ever so gently, that he should leave bypassing devolution to his friends from Scottish Labour, because they are just a little bit better at it than him. It is their job to constantly speak about the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. To be fair to them, they have done a fantastic job—they barely even mention the UK Government. Every single contribution they make is about the Scottish Government, so maybe just leave it to them, shall we?

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[Pete Wishart]

We do not put people in the House of Lords. If people want to give us a million pounds, they can—please, if anyone is watching on TV, we could do with a million pounds. Sorry to disappoint anybody thinking about doing that, because we cannot give them a place in the House of Lords. I will give way one last time to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, who I have given way to once already.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. I agree with him about the necessity for probity, ethics and transparency in politics, and I also enjoy his righteous speeches in this place. Obviously, he is a moral guiding compass for us all, so will he now make a clear and unambiguous declaration that not a single person who has ever donated to the Scottish National party or served as a Scottish National party Member of Parliament has ever been given a position in a publicly funded quango, or a publicly funded seat on a board, or been in receipt of any publicly funded donation? Obviously, I want to ensure that we aspire to the bar that the hon. Gentleman sets.

[Pete Wishart]

What I can say categorically to the hon. Gentleman is that there is nobody who has given one single penny to the Scottish National party— [Interruption.] Again, I appeal to people watching, if they want to give us money, please do so, but one thing we can never do—we never have and never will—is, in return, offer a place in our legislature or the ability to govern in this country. We do not do that, we cannot do that and we will never, ever do that.

Let me point to the scale of the difficulty of the problem when it comes to the donors. Some 68 out of 284 nominations from political parties between 2013 and 2023 were for political donors who had handed over £58 million to one of the three main parties. Over the course of that decade, some 12 of them gave £1 million. Now that might sound familiar to some Labour Members—£1 million is what people used to give to the Labour party under Tony Blair in the early 2000s to get a place in the House of Lords. Come on! Where is inflation when it comes to this? We would expect it to cost £1.5 million to get a place in the House of Lords now, but the going rate is seemingly still about £1 million.

Cash for honours was a disaster for Labour. It was absolutely awful. We saw the spectacle of a sitting Prime Minister being interviewed by the police about the donations that were being given to the Labour party. Those donations were interpreted as inducements to secure a place in the House of Lords. The Prime Minister was interviewed under caution and two of his personal staff were arrested. After that experience, we would be right to expect some sort of clarity in their thinking to take place. They could have decided never to get into that type of territory again—that they would do everything possible to ensure that money was taken out of politics, so that there would never be a whiff of suspicion that such a thing would happen again. But not a bit of it. Donors still go into the House of Lords, money still goes into the political party, and the public want it stopped.

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[Richard Baker]

We do actually have a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in the House of Lords. I very much enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman’s speech—his points were made very passionately and with great conviction—but his party was in government as a majority Government for many years, and it did nothing on that issue.

[Gareth Snell]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point: not only were the Conservatives a majority Government in this place, they had a plurality in the other place, so they were unfettered. Does my hon. Friend accept that, while the argument of the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) may be well-meaning, bolting a non-manifesto commitment on to a manifesto commitment risks derailing a Bill that has already been all but agreed under the Salisbury convention at the Dispatch Box by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and therefore risks losing all forms of reform that we are offering?

[Richard Baker]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point—I could not agree more. It risks derailing the Bill and the potential to make urgent progress on this particular issue, which it is so important that we as a House deal with this evening.

As other Members have said—I want to make this point very clearly—this reform is about principle, not about personalities. In my own career before taking up my seat in this House, I received the support and assistance of hereditary Members of the House of Lords in many campaigns on a whole range of matters of public policy, and I valued that support. Since my election, I have had the opportunity to speak with hereditary peers who have brought significant experience to the House of Lords, who have been diligent and committed, and who have greatly valued their role in the House. Nevertheless, it is clearly the case that in advance of further reforms, membership of the House of Lords should be based on experience and expertise, not birthright. The fact that there are still no female hereditary peers is another example of how that approach to membership of the House of Lords cannot align with what I believe should be the shared goal of making the House more inclusive and representative of wider society.

Earlier in the debate, we heard some contributions suggesting that passing this Bill would somehow jeopardise the work of the House of Lords or reduce its effectiveness. There will still be over 700 peers left, so I do not think we are in danger of a shortage of peers in this Parliament. I believe that this reform must be taken forward now, and having recently joined the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, I look forward to further deliberation on reform of our second chamber.

Turning again to the speech made by the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire, I was pleased to hear him laud Gordon Brown—that has not always been the case in speeches he has made. Gordon Brown’s leadership of the Commission on the UK’s Future, established by the Labour party in opposition, was a vital contribution to the debate on how we take forward the constitutional arrangements for government in our country. The commission’s report absolutely needs to be an active document in this Parliament, discussed in this Chamber and I hope by the Select Committee that I have just joined, when we look forward to the future of our constitutional arrangements. The report is right to set out the proposal for a council of nations and regions. It shows also the necessity for reform in regard to hereditary peers, and why those wider reforms of the House of Lords will be important in relation to public confidence in our institutions of government.

The report highlighted research showing that 71% of people in the UK back overhauling the House of Lords. That support cuts across all parties, nations and regions: nearly half the British public think that the Lords does not work well. Support for the current composition of the second Chamber was reported by the commission at just 12%. I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) has recorded even lower levels in other research. It just shows why this reform is desperately required if we are to attain confidence in our second Chamber.

Analysis shows that a majority of Members of the House of Lords are based in London and the south-east. If we want to increase confidence in this Parliament, in Westminster, that issue must be addressed, along with further devolution to other parts of the United Kingdom and the nations of the United Kingdom. A second Chamber whose membership is far more reflective of all the nations and regions of the UK can only help generate greater confidence in our legislature in every part of the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In that case, I will go to Gareth Snell.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

T4.   The Minister will be aware that the dire financial inheritance bequeathed by the last Government means that there is rightly a renewed focus on how we spend public money. Will she tell the House what work she is doing across Government to ensure better use of public money, drive down waste and improve efficiency, in particular with regard to consultants?

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)]

As the Minister responsible for public service reform, I am clear that every single pound saved on unnecessary consultancy spend is a pound invested in the renewal of our public services and delivering our ambitious missions to change the country. We are taking tough action to cut down on wasteful consultancy spend. We are acting to stop all non-essential Government consultancy spending this year and to halve Government spending on consultancy in future years, with a target saving of £550 million in 2024-25 and £680 million in 2025-26.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Gareth Snell Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I am strongly of the view that we should consider all these things in the round. There is merit here—that is why we are proposing a reasoned amendment—but the risk of proceeding in a rushed fashion is that we come to regret it, as we have on many previous occasions.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Shaun Davies]

rose—

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I will make some progress and then I will give way.

In 1999, Baroness Jay, the then Leader of the House of Lords, said that a partly reformed Lords with only excepted hereditaries remaining would be

“more legitimate, because its members have earned their places”

and would have more authority. That was termed the Jay doctrine at the time. If the excepted peers go, what other conventions are at risk of change—the Salisbury convention, or the restraint against vetoing secondary legislation? The lack of consultation and scrutiny, and the Government’s piecemeal approach to reform, has meant such questions have the potential to be reopened.

[Gareth Snell]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I will give way first to the hon. Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) and then to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell).

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that the reforms were introduced in 1999. By my calculation, the Labour party was in power for another 11 years and did precisely nothing further. I will come to this point in a moment, but the reason the hereditaries remained in the House of Lords in 1999 was to ensure that all these things were considered at the same time. The Government are breaking a principle that they agreed to previously.

[Gareth Snell]

The right hon. Gentleman rightly talks about the Salisbury convention. Is that his way of telling us that, as the Bill was a manifesto commitment— as pointed out by the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson)—Conservative peers will be voting for it to comply with the convention that he has said is so important?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

Well—

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[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your guidance on acceptable conduct in this place. I think it is very important, and I am grateful to be able to make what I hope will be a relatively brief contribution to the debate on this Bill.

It will come as no surprise to Conservative Members that I fully support the Bill in front of us, which I think is a sensible, rational and timely first step towards reform of the other place in a way that gives us time—as the right hon. Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden) has so eloquently argued for—to consider other things as we go along. There is a time for evolution and a time for revolution, and at the moment, it is time for evolution in how we amend the House of Lords. It is a question of how we take the first steps towards removing the most indefensible part of that House and of our constitution, while allowing ourselves the time and space to consider the other issues that have been raised and the commitments we made in our manifesto. I gently remind Conservative Members that that manifesto delivered a majority Government—you could say that consultation was had, and therefore we enact our policies.

I enjoyed the contribution of the right hon. Member for Hertsmere. I do not ask him to speak for his party because it is in flux. However, I ask Conservative Members not just to complain about the scope of the Bill, especially the lack of reform—I welcome their support for reform of the upper House; it has been a long time coming, but better late than never—but to consider whether they can defend the right of 92 people to sit in the upper House by virtue of their birth.

Those 92 peers have been almost exclusively white men. When the House of Lords Act 1999 was passed, five women were allowed to continue as hereditary peers in the House of Lords, the last being the Countess of Mar, who retired in 2020. As my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) said, whenever the opportunity for a by-election arose for one of the seats held by women, the woman was replaced by a man. More than 200 candidates are on the roll of eligible peers who could stand in by-elections for those seats, had the House of Lords not amended its Standing Orders. I will take an intervention from any Conservative Member who can tell me how many of those on that roll are women. Anyone? No. The answer is two. Fewer than 1% of those eligible to fill those hereditary seats are women.

I have no doubt that Conservative Members share my concern about the inequality that arises if we say that a white man has a potential privilege when he is one of the 92 or when he is a member of the 200 families who, by 100-year-old letters patent, have been in a position to secure one of those seats. To me, that is the most indefensible aspect. It is not necessarily about who those people are. I do not doubt that every single member of the hereditary peers group, whether in my party or not, has expertise and a skillset that they can bring to bear. However, if, upon their expulsion, they wish to continue to contribute to public life, all parties will have nomination lists during this Parliament. They can use them, if they wish, to bring back their best and their brightest. Of course, when those hereditary peers are no longer Members of the House of Lords, they are entitled to do what we have all done and present themselves to the public for election to this place, with a mandate.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

Conservative Members are clearly unembarrassed by the total lack of women among the hereditary peers. Does my hon. Friend agree that they should be embarrassed by the total lack of women on their Benches right now?

[Gareth Snell]

I am not sure that any Labour Member needs to quantify Conservative Members’ embarrassment; they do it for themselves.

The hon. Gentlemen seem to be confused about whether they want more or less reform. I think we know that the answer is that they do not want any reform, but they create a smokescreen of wanting to act faster and with more zeal than Labour Members simply because they wish to ruin the Bill. They want to press amendments that are not relevant and not in the Bill’s scope. They want to make arguments about retirement ages. When the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) argued that there should be a retirement age of 80, I am sure that he had not spoken to his right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale), who is 81, although, to look at him, one would not think he was a day over 60.

[Andrew Rosindell]

I am puzzled. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman does not like the current system, but he does not explain how our legislation would be better for removing those people who have so much wisdom, experience and knowledge. How will our country’s legislation benefit from the change?

[Gareth Snell]

The hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not agreeing with him. There is a lot of wisdom and experience in this place that can be used to improve our legislation. Even with the removal of the 92 hereditary peers, there will still be 650 peers, who have incredible insights and specialisms. The Bill removes a group of people whose only entitlement to be in the House of Lords comes from, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson said, a birthright many hundreds of years old, and from being selected by their friends to sit with them. The hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) may not agree with me, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Telford pointed out, the election process in the other place is a farce. There are often more candidates than electors. It is almost akin to the Tory party leadership election.

[Pete Wishart]

The only other group that seems to reserve a place in the House of Lords is millionaires—party donors. Sixty-eight out of 284 political appointees between 2003 and 2013 gave £58 million to political parties. What will the hon. Gentleman do about them?

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[Gareth Snell]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me to stray outside the scope of the Bill. Madam Deputy Speaker has been clear that the Bill is specifically about hereditary peers. The Government have committed to reform the appointments process for the House of Lords. Everything does not have to be done in the same Bill. As the former Deputy Prime Minister pointed out, the pace needs to be considered, so that there are no unintended consequences, about which he is rightly concerned. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) can chunter at me from a sedentary position, but when we are considering hereditary peers, we are looking at the 92.

If anyone wants to justify reserving seats in the House of Lords for 92 white men, I will take an intervention now. Conservative Members do not want to do that because they do not want to defend the indefensible. They want to complain and bellyache that they do not like what we are doing. They dress up their complaints as process concerns about unintended consequences and make spurious arguments about the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain. That all shows that the Conservative party has simply run out of steam and ideas. All Conservative Members can do is chunter and complain about what we want to do.

[Sir Roger Gale]

Setting aside the hon. Gentleman’s ageist remarks, which I find deeply offensive, let me consider the point that the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) made. Why is it okay for the Labour party to maintain the Prime Minister’s patronage to appoint party cronies to the House of Lords while abolishing the hereditary peers, who do a good job?

[Gareth Snell]

I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman if my suggestion that he did not look a day over 60 was ageist—perhaps I should have said “over 50”. I find it difficult to take an argument from Conservative Members about crony patronage and the House of Lords when the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson put hundreds of people in there. He did so against the advice of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, yet Conservative Members said nothing at the time and were happy about it. Now, all of a sudden, it is an absolute problem that needs to be resolved.

I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General has made it clear that, after we have completed the process of removing the excepted hereditary peers, the Government will move on to other parts of House of Lords reform, which will make the appointments process more transparent. That will allow us to have a considered debate about the way in which that process can happen. While we have prime ministerial patronage, it must be transparent. Frankly, Conservative Members can give no lessons to any of us about transparency in prime ministerial patronage. Boris Johnson packed the House of Lords with his friends and cronies against the advice of officials, and Conservative Members had nothing to say about it.

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion that further reforms will be coming down the line. That will entail further legislation, and we know how precious legislative time is. Can he—or perhaps the Paymaster General—tell us when the subsequent Lords reform Bills will be introduced in this Parliament?

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[Gareth Snell]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support. There will be more legislation. I am not a Front Bencher, but I know, because our manifesto said that we were committed to further reform, that that time will come. I am sure that there will be legislative time and that he will have an opportunity later in the debate to put the question to Labour Front Benchers directly, or perhaps to table a business question for a Thursday morning.

To draw my comments to a conclusion—

[Mr Holden]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gareth Snell]

I would rather not, if that is okay—anyone else but the right hon. Gentleman. He was only 10 votes away from potentially getting a peerage himself, so perhaps for that reason he may not want to comment on the appointment process.

[Mr Holden]

The hon. Gentleman has had a nice laugh at my expense, but he knows what it is like to lose an election and to move seats. He made a good point about the Labour manifesto including the removal of hereditary peers, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) made clear, the same paragraph includes the introduction of a retirement age at 80. Will the hon. Gentleman welcome any amendments to introduce that in this legislation?

[Gareth Snell]

Again, I am surprised I have to explain to the right hon. Gentleman how legislation works. A Government do not legislate on their whole manifesto in one Bill at the beginning of a Parliament. Those on my party’s Front Bench have said, and I fully accept that this is the right way to do it, that there will be a sequence of reforms over time, starting with the expulsion of the hereditary peers. That is the simplest way to start this process, allowing time and space for considered debate about the other proposed reforms that were in our manifesto and were supported by the British people.

In conclusion, all this Bill does is seek to end a 27-year anomaly that first came about when the Conservative party objected to previous reforms. By voting for it tonight, we can start to right that wrong, and we can start ourselves on a process of reform of the House of Lords. I look forward to welcoming all my new reforming friends to join us in the Aye Lobby this evening.

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[Simon Hoare]

I am going to stay mute on the “all” point, but my right hon. Friend echoes the point I was endeavouring to make, which is that a list of conversion, as it were, from hereditary to life should be considered by His Majesty’s Government, outwith leaving it to leaders of any party to nominate for a new year’s honour or a birthday honour, because that would clog up the system for those who are new to public life—echoing the point the Minister raised—where people want to make a contribution and may have caught the eye of the powers that be in order to secure a nomination.

I think there is a job of work that needs to be done. There are a number of ways in which one can land on the right solution, but it should not just be a case of, “Thank you so very much indeed for your service. Please return the ermine to the Lord Great Chamberlain. Your retirement party has been postponed because we could not find a room to have it in”, or whatever it may happen to be. I think there is a way which is elegant, which is kind, which is graceful and which has some democratic underpinning, because at least it will have gone through the appointments.

I close by saying that this is a missed opportunity, and the Labour Front Bench needs to consider that. I appreciate that they have the distorting effect of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who did take up a little Labour bandwidth. We all got constrained by delivering Brexit, or trying not to deliver Brexit. And then we all had the big national distortion of the pandemic. But to offer this dance of the seven veils, after 14 years of opposition, and on an issue that people in this place and outside have been talking about for over a century, suggests to me a lack of detailed preparedness by the Government in some policy areas. It cannot have been a shock to Labour that they won the election; it may have come as a pleasant surprise that they won so comprehensively, but it really cannot have come as a shock that they were likely to win the general election whenever it came, irrespective of how hard my colleagues and I were working to ensure that did not happen:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune”,

or misfortune in my party’s case, but we are where we are.

I hope that amendments are forthcoming—I do not think it is too late to work cross-party on this—to buttress this proposal and deliver some of that democratisation of the House of Lords, and to make sure it is more regionally reflective. I listened to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) talking about the number of white men. I will be careful as he is helping me on a constituency issue, for which I am grateful and I want to put my thanks on the record, but my party has given the country three female Prime Ministers, the first Prime Minister of Jewish heritage and the first Prime Minister of the Hindu faith, so I am not entirely certain that we need to take lessons from the Labour party on how to bring people who are not necessarily used to public life into public life.

[Gareth Snell]

The hon. Gentleman makes my point quite succinctly for me. Yes, there were three female leaders of his party, but they were elected; none of them had the opportunity to take up one of the 92 seats in the House of Lords. That is the anomaly that needs to be resolved.

[Simon Hoare]

Labour were very keen to stop the Member for Stoke Newington being elected, and doubtless she would have been donning ermine at some point, so again I think the hon. Gentleman is on slightly thin ice. I say to the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn), who is looking confused, that I am talking about the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). I say to him, “Keep up, 007!” I do not know whether he noticed it during the election campaign, but there was quite a lot in the media about it. He should look it up—the House of Commons Library is frightfully helpful on these sorts of things.

So I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere, with huge reluctance and sadness, that I am more than likely to sit this one out, as the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee—and I am sure that the Committee will want to look at this in more detail when we are up and running. But the underlying principle that the Minister has set forward is a compelling one. It is a sadness, a disappointment and a surprise that he is not taking this opportunity, after 14 years preparing in opposition, and after a century of making the case from the centre-left of British politics, and with a massive Commons majority, and that this timid little church mouse of a Bill is the best that he can offer us this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

Indeed, and I want to encourage the Paymaster General. He has the potential to be known as a great reformer of the Labour party—he will write books about himself in the future—but he needs to be brave. He needs to be bold. I know that he can persuade his friends in the Whips Office to be bold. Fundamentally, we have a big opportunity. There is an unfairness. There is an injustice. So many people of so many faiths, and so many people of no faith at all, see that there are 26 bishops in the House of Lords. They do not reflect what the United Kingdom looks like today, so if the Government are not willing to table an amendment, I will table an amendment to remove those 26 bishops from the House of Lords.

[Gareth Snell]

rose—

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support me in that mission to make the upper House a fairer and more reflective Chamber.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank my Staffordshire colleague for giving way. If he carries on with this strain of radicalism, he might even have a book written about him by the Paymaster General—scant as it might be. Is he taking his point to the final degree? Is he now advocating for the disestablishment of the Church of England, because that is where that argument ends up?

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

No, they are totally different things. There will be no disestablishment of the Church of England, but we need to lance the boil of the frankly ridiculous fact that we have clergy automatically sitting, as of right, in one of the Houses that make up this Parliament. To me, that is not right. It happens in Iran, but it does not happen elsewhere. I cannot see the justification for it, especially when it does not reflect the nations and regions of this country. Strong arguments have been made across this House, including on the Labour Benches, about the fact that hereditary peers do not reflect the make-up of this country. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) made a persuasive argument about the fact that they are nearly all male, and that only 1% of them—I think he mentioned—were female. Well, there is a similar challenge with those bishops. Of course, nowadays, only 2% of the British population attend Anglican services on a Sunday. More people declare that they have no religion than actually attend a church. Britain is a very different country today from how it was in the past.

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[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I am grateful to be called in this important debate. I have a little bit of experience of this issue, having served as a special adviser in the House of Lords, working with the now Leader of the House of Lords when she was on the Opposition Front Bench. I also worked with Baroness Stowell of Beeston and as special adviser to Baroness Evans of Bowes Park, as well as with some hereditary peers, including Freddie, Lord Howe and Patrick, the Earl of Courtown. It is important to acknowledge, as many Members have, the service that all Members of the House of Lords give to our country.

Ministers perhaps did not understand exactly where I was coming from when I intervened earlier, but my point has been made by Members from across the Opposition Benches. Why go for piecemeal reform when the Government have the space to ask the country what it wants? Why not put something forward with the legislative time available, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) said? We could have a proper debate, as the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) said, on the future of the country.

[Gareth Snell]

The right hon. Gentleman has made a number of contributions this afternoon and I have listened to them all, but I am not clear whether he supports the removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords. Perhaps before he concludes his speech he could put it very clearly on the record whether he supports the principle of removing hereditary peers.

[Mr Holden]

I thank the hon. Member for his question. I do support their removal, but as part of a broader package of measures. I think that is the issue at stake today which Members on the Opposition Benches are concerned about. This piecemeal reform, which will remove people who are there by an accident of birth, will leave people in the House of Lords who are also there by accident or, in the case of bishops, by faith. It will leave the issue the public are perhaps most concerned about, which is pure patronage. Those two issues have been left totally to one side in the speeches made by Government Members. If we are to look at this issue properly, we need to look at it in the round.

We have had piecemeal change over the last few years. I was working in the House of Lords when voluntary retirement was introduced. That was built on many measures over the years, including the Life Peerages Act 1958, which was passed by a Conservative Government. If we are going to consider changing the situation in the House of Lords and what it is going to be, other conventions will be called into question. Surely it would be better to deal with the whole issue and get it right, than to have to legislate two or three times, or make further changes down the line? Why not get something that the whole House and the country can have a proper debate on and reach proper agreement, and then legislate in one piece?

[Mr Holden]

I totally agree with the hon. Member. It is interesting that the Bill has not been subject to the pre-legislative scrutiny that would normally come forward, because of the broader implications for the second Chamber. I want it done properly, as a full package. I do not think slice-by-slice reform is what the country wants. I have some sympathy with those on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench who see the Bill as a step in the right direction, but I fundamentally disagree with them. We need a full package of reforms to see where we wish to end up.

[Gareth Snell]

rose—

[Andrew Rosindell]

rose—

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[Mr Holden]

I certainly did not find it in Basildon and Billericay—or in Romford when I visited it with my hon. Friend, or, indeed, in other seats across the country—and I think that our constituents will be slightly baffled. When it comes to a big piece of constitutional reform, why should this Government want to come forward with, potentially, a multiplicity of different Bills throughout the current Parliament, rather than putting something to the public to have a look at now, and then having a look at it right at the end? What constituents have been mentioning in recent weeks and months is their concern about the winter fuel payments or about what might be in the Government’s new Budget, particularly the jobs tax, which they fear will hit jobs throughout the country.

[Gareth Snell]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Holden]

I do not want to take up too much of the House’s time, so I am trying to reduce the number of interventions that I take.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) hit the nail on the head when he said that this was a proper missed opportunity, but my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) made some important points. As he said, when we legislate we have to do so carefully, because we are fundamentally changing the nature of what we are looking at. Proper reform has been wanted by generations of politicians on both sides of the House, but particularly those in the Labour party. I do not understand why at this stage, with such a large majority and with time on their side, the Government are not seeking to put those changes through properly.

[Gareth Snell]

rose—

[Mr Holden]

I will give way again.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman. Perhaps I can help him. As a former special adviser in the House of Lords, he will know that carrying out reform in that House is incredibly complex. There appears to be a general consensus across all parties in this House on the eradication, or rather the expulsion, of the hereditary peers. If it were part of a larger combined bid, the right hon. Gentleman would risk losing that principle, because there would be more for us to fall out over and disagree on. Inevitably, his party would vote against it in Committee and on Third Reading, which would leave the whole package potentially at risk.

[Mr Holden]

I think that the hon. Member is missing my point. We have to see this as part of a package. Lord Irvine spoke about it in 1999. The hereditary peers were being kept there as the stone in the shoe, and should not be removed until the wider reform was settled. The Government have a very large majority in this House. They can certainly get stuff through if they wish, and I urge Ministers to consider that comprehensive reform. I understand what the hon. Member is saying—why not do it slice by slice?—but I think that the entire point of the hereditaries being there shines a light on the greater issues we are facing in the House of Lords, as was mentioned earlier by, for instance, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) when he was talking about the religious Members of the Lords. If we are going to do a package, let us do a proper package.

It also concerns me that, having proposed a retirement age in their manifesto, the Government are apparently not seeking to legislate on that now. Why not? The scope of the Bill in relation to membership of the House of Lords is clearly wide enough for the purpose. In the Canadian upper House, for instance, the retirement age is 75, and in this country there is a mandatory retirement age of 75 for judges. I should be interested to hear from Ministers how they can justify a mandatory retirement age of 75 for those who interpret the law, but cannot justify it for those who make the law—not democratically elected, as Members well over that age have been in this House, but appointed. That is where the similarity with judicial appointments comes in. If the Bill is passed, Members of the House of Lords will be purely appointed. Obviously, there is already a retirement age for Lords Spiritual.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holden]

What we are discussing today is a policy of the Government. My party is in opposition, because its manifesto was rejected by the public at the last general election. We are discussing a policy of the Government and what was in the manifesto on which the hon. Gentleman stood. It will be interesting to see whether he and others will back the manifesto on which they stood if amendments are tabled by the Opposition. We will have to see about that over the coming weeks.

[Gareth Snell]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Mr Holden]

Not again.

Currently, Members of the House of Lords are there by birthright or appointed by God, as it were, or the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is going to pull out the hereditary peers, so it will just be him and God appointing people if this legislation goes through unchallenged. Putting even more power in the hands of the Executive—they have a majority of 174, as the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) said, although some of their Members come and go at the moment—is a really dangerous thing to do, and we are not looking at the comprehensive package of reform that was promised.

Labour Members have talked about things that happened 25 years ago, when I—even though I might not look it—was still in short trousers. We need to reflect on the fact that this is a very different time from then. I hope that those on the Government Front Bench will consider what those on the Opposition Front Bench have mentioned today and look at the broader package, rather than looking at this issue in isolation, because they have the time and space to do so. I think the public would like to see a proper package brought forward, and the Government should concentrate on the people’s priorities, which are the cost of living and taxation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I would vote in favour of the removal of the hereditary peers as part of a package, but not so that the Government can remove them and then do nothing, which is what they did 25 years ago.

I would like the Minister to explain how he believes his reform will improve the functioning of Parliament. Who will the Government put in place of the hereditary peers? More former MPs, perhaps? Donors or trade union officials? Perhaps some former councillors? The upper House already has a surfeit of all the above. If we want an effective upper House, we need diversity of experience: perhaps some people who have worked in the private sector or run a business could help the Front Bench. The upper Chamber has quite enough former politicians without the Prime Minister appointing more people to buy him suits and glasses.

[Gareth Snell]

I am very much enjoying the speech by the hon. Member. Is he making an argument that the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), should not be entitled to an appointment list, and is he making a commitment on behalf of Members of his own party that they will forgo any appointments that they are offered under this Government?

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I would not dare to answer on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton.

I fear that this Government are not motivated by a desire to improve the legislature, and that they have brought this measure forward for party political advantage. They want to be rid of the hereditary peers because 42 of them are Conservative and only four are Labour. Once they have driven this Bill through Parliament, their desire for further reform will cool just as rapidly as it did 25 years ago.

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[Andrew Rosindell]

If we are to change our constitution so radically—I believe the Bill creates a radical change—then that should be done with thought, care and attention, as well as consultation and careful consideration. As I pointed out to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) earlier, I do not think this is an issue on the doorstep anywhere. During the general election campaign, I do not think anyone raised the issue as a serious matter they wanted us to deal with. There are so many other issues, yet we are rushing to make a major constitutional change without giving it due consideration.

We share a deep intergenerational responsibility in this House that rests heaviest on the Government of the day. We are the custodians of our nation and all that belongs to it, and not its master. We have a responsibility to preserve our nation and its constitution—an obligation between those who have passed on, those who are living and those who are yet to be born. That is the importance of the hereditary principle, something that Members on the Government Benches, and indeed some on the Conservative Benches, fail to appreciate.

Tony Blair’s new Labour Government took a three-inch-wide paintbrush to remake this great work of art of generations in their own image. They started a programme of thoughtless destruction, from the removal of the law Lords from the other place, with the creation of the Supreme Court, a notion alien to our constitutional heritage, to the culling of independently minded—I say those words clearly, Madam Deputy Speaker—hereditary peers and the appointment of partisan placemen.

It is no good for our constitution and it adds nothing to the work of our Parliament. It now appears that today’s Labour Government have recklessly come to finish the hatchet job on an ill-thought-out constitutional revolution in the name of so-called modernisation.

[Gareth Snell]

The hon. Gentleman just made the point that the hereditary peers are a bastion of independence, and the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) said that many of the Conservative peers are long-serving Members of his party’s Front Bench team. How can those two things be reconciled?

[Andrew Rosindell]

I have worked with Members of the House of Lords over many of my 23 years in Parliament. They are not seeking re-election, preferment or title. They are here to serve our country and to assist this place in making better laws. All the hereditary peers and life peers—from all parties—with whom I have had the privilege to work have always been there to serve. To discard that so easily without serious long-term consideration to the effects of doing this is reckless.

Our constitution is the most vital part of our shared British heritage, and the hereditary peers are an integral part of that, which cannot be replicated by modern means. Yet the argument in defence of hereditary peers cannot be based solely on history, however important that may be. From the Duke of Wellington, who has been mentioned, and the Duke of Norfolk, to the Earl Attlee, the Lord Northbrook, the Viscount Craigavon, who was also mentioned, and the Lord Bethell of Romford, the hereditary peers bring a wealth of intergenerational experience and knowledge to our Parliament. They have an inherited obligation and a duty to serve. They are also invaluable to our parliamentary democracy, holding the Government to account, scrutinising legislation and raising often forgotten issues of national importance. Many hereditary peers are shining examples of exemplary parliamentarians.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Rosindell]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is quite the opposite. There are many Members of the House of Lords—life peers and hereditary peers—who take the Conservative Whip but who frankly act like independents, doing what they believe is in the interests of our country. That can be said for many on the Labour side as well. He will find that there are many more rebellions and people voting in different ways in Parliament in the Lords than in the Commons, because they are there to serve and they do not face re-election. For that reason, they are not subject to the usual pressures —lobbying, the Whips and all the rest of it—that we are all subject to, and that is why having that element is so important and is part of the mix that makes up the success of our Parliament.

[Gareth Snell]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Andrew Rosindell]

I will—one last time.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving in to my indulgences. This is an argument that could quite easily have been made during the passage of the original 1999 legislation: that the expulsion of the hereditaries would lead to a complete collapse of our scrutiny processes. Is he suggesting—I do not believe he is—that since ’99 and the removal of the other hereditaries, the House of Lords has not been fulfilling its function properly? That is certainly not how I would see the current House of Lords. If he does not believe that, surely removing the existing 92 will not have an impact on the scrutiny that he and I think is so important.

[Andrew Rosindell]

We cannot turn the clock back, but very many good people were ejected in that first legislation under the Blair Government. The compromise was to keep the 92 there. I think that is a good compromise and I do not really understand the rush for change; we should keep things as they are.

It is patently obvious that the Bill is a precursor for a wider and scandalous programme to weaken Parliament’s ability to hold the Executive to account and ride roughshod over our tried and tested constitution. Not only does the Bill open a slippery slope towards dissent-quelling, but it is an attack on the merits of the hereditary principle, which logically and inevitably leads to a fundamental undermining of the primary constitutional role of the monarchy itself. Maybe there are some Members on the Labour Benches who would like a republic, but I think the vast majority of British people would not want that, so to discard the hereditary principle is a very dangerous road to go down.

I urge the House to consider with the utmost seriousness the weight of intergenerational custodianship upon our shoulders when we vote on matters such as this, which are of grave constitutional significance. The removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords would eradicate from the proceedings of Parliament some of the wisest and most dutiful servants of this great democratic institution. I believe the House should oppose this act of constitutional vandalism and continue to uphold the good and great conventions and traditions that have provided our cherished island nation with stability, continuity and wisdom for so many generations.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen]

No, I will make some progress, as there is not much time.

As with many areas of policy, and as witnessed in these first 100 days, the Bill exposes that, despite all those months sat on the Opposition Benches, the Government do not have a coherent plan with the next steps set out.

[Gareth Snell]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[John Glen]

I will in a moment. I said that I would, so I will. As Lord Adonis has reminded us,

“there is no consensus on reform.”

The Government did have, as they kept telling us when it was the other way round, 14 years to deliver. They had 14 years to come up with that plan. Now they have an enormous majority, and they have just set out one step.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way. He has diligently listened to all the debate this afternoon, and I thank him for that. He talks about a package of reforms. The last reform that his party brought forward in 2014 was a very small reform, with the expulsion of people for non-attendance, the right to resign or retire and the expulsion of those who committed a crime. Since then, 187 Members have retired or resigned and 16 have been expelled for non-attendance. If that was perfectly acceptable as a stand-alone reform without consideration of the consequential impacts, why is this Bill any different?

[John Glen]

I am sorry, but it is the hon. Gentleman’s Government who are now in charge of the agenda before Parliament. It is for them to be accountable for it. I am so challenged by the poverty of ambition that exists on the Government Benches. We are given to believe that they are planning a new wave of peers, and the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff has reportedly been overheard saying that she is top of the list. The Prime Minister was previously reported as trying to make our political system better, because it had previously been undermined by “lackeys and donors” appointed to the other place. Sadly, it seems that as soon as he got into Downing Street, he discovered the Government’s own lackeys and donors were already waiting for him. I think that reflects this Government’s wider approach and attitude to constitutional reform and our institutions.

Reporting Ministerial Gifts and Hospitality

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Reeves]

I thank the hon. Member for his helpful contribution. That is exactly what we seek to do through these changes.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the conversion of the Conservative party to transparency and ethics. Whether it was wallpaper or weddings, or Pincher, Paterson or Benton, Conservative Members were sadly silent when they thought that one of their own should get away with things. May I suggest that my hon. Friend retrospectively apply the new rules to the last 12 months of every serving Member who was a Minister? They should have to declare every piece of hospitality and gift that they received as Ministers, so that we can see exactly what their own record was compared with our cleanliness.

[Ellie Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for his observations. That is certainly something that I can take back to be looked at.

Early Parliamentary General Election

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

I will not give way. I want to make some progress.

That is why, in the absence of those numbers for a people’s vote, the way forward now is to have an election, but to do so responsibly, not letting the Prime Minister force through his bad Brexit deal in a small number of days without proper scrutiny, which is what his plan is and why we will not support his motion tonight. We know that the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal will be bad for workers’ rights, bad for environmental protections, bad for the economy, bad for jobs, bad for our public services, bad for our security and bad for our United Kingdom. It should not be left to the Government to have carte blanche to set the date of the election after the House of Commons has dissolved. We cannot trust what the Prime Minister says.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jo Swinson]

No, I am making some progress.

We cannot trust what the Prime Minister says. We have no guarantee that he would not try to crash us out of the European Union. He said that he would not prorogue Parliament; he did. He said that he would not send a letter to request an extension of article 50, and he did. We cannot trust what the Prime Minister says. That is why the plan that we have put forward with the Scottish National party for a general election on 9 December takes no deal off the table with the extension to article 50 and means that we have no withdrawal agreement Bill and that there is no wriggle room on the date for the Prime Minister. We have worked together on a cross-party basis. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that we want to stop Brexit. We have worked together, which has been important. The European Union did not grant that extension on Friday when it said it might, and our EU friends have told us that the letter and the Bill that were published were instrumental in making sure that they were able to grant that extension.

[Jo Swinson]

I thank my hon. Friend—and I do count him as a friend—for that intervention. We have also worked together well on the people’s vote campaign, and I welcome the cross-party nature of that work. I have campaigned for votes at 16 from the moment that I came into this House. We have votes at 16 for most elections in Scotland, and it works well. The sky has not fallen in. I think that votes at 16 should be introduced across all different elections. But I say to my hon. Friend that the worst thing we could do for 16 and 17-year-olds is to crash out and leave the European Union. We are in a situation where there is no guarantee of an extension beyond 31 January, and we need to do everything that we can to stop Brexit. If that means having an election to stop Brexit to protect the rights of those 16 and 17-year-olds, we need to deliver that, because leaving the European Union is the thing that will wreck the future of those young people.

[Gareth Snell]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jo Swinson]

I have given way plenty of times.

The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition say that they want a general election. If that is the case and they are not just playing games, then the Government will give time for the Bill that we have published, and the Leader of the Opposition will ask his MPs to support it. I relish the opportunity to take both of them on in a general election and share with the country the Liberal Democrat positive vision to stop Brexit and build a brighter future.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Gareth Snell Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right, and the consequence of not getting this done and not voting through this deal tonight is to continue with the creeping paralysis that is affecting certain parts of our economy.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[The Prime Minister]

Perhaps even worse—[Interruption.] Perhaps even worse, if we do not get this thing done we face the continuing acrimony and the abuse that I am afraid is still heard—perhaps increasingly heard—on both sides of the argument.

[Gareth Snell]

rose—

[The Prime Minister]

The divisions will continue. [Interruption.] I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Gareth Snell]

May I start by thanking the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and the hon. Members for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) and for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) for helping getting me noticed? I must have been hard to spot.

May I bring the Prime Minister’s attention to clause 31, which is basically the amendment that my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) and I tabled to the last meaningful vote? However, whether by accident or by sneak, the Prime Minister has managed to add a small addendum, which means that any future vote would have to comply almost exclusively with the political declaration, meaning that this House would be constrained in what it could set as the future negotiating mandate. Can the Prime Minister explain why that has appeared? Also, on the purpose of scrutiny, this Bill specifically disapplies section 20 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 which requires a 21-day resting period for all international treaties; why has the Prime Minister decided to do that on this, and is that something he plans to do on any future trade arrangements?

[The Prime Minister]

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about clause 31, the intention is very clear: the intention is to allow the House to participate actively and fully in the building of the future partnership. If he reads the political declaration, he will see that there is plenty of scope within that political declaration for very active and full participation by all Members of the House in devising that partnership.

On the hon. Gentleman’s second point about the deadline in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, there is in my view ample time for us to get this done. The House of Commons has been discussing this issue for three and a half years. We have chewed over this question again and again; our constituents will not be fooled by any further delay—they will not understand why that is necessary—and if we delay again, I am afraid that we will miss an opportunity to heal the divisions between us, and the paralysis will continue. Let me make it absolutely clear: there is no way—

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating the Oxford Diocesan Schools Trust on its success. I am also happy to congratulate Holyport Primary School on the recognition it has received as a good school and Brize Norton Primary in his constituency, which was rated outstanding. It shows that smaller schools in rural areas can provide an excellent quality of education and that the academy movement can provide for those schools and those children. It goes back to the point I made earlier: what matters is the quality of education our children receive, and in Holyport and Brize Norton they are receiving a first-class education.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q10. This week, the Stoke-on-Trent Hardship Commission published its report, which demonstrated that income, education and employment were the driving factors of poverty in our city. I have sent the Prime Minister a copy, and I invite her to read it. Will she use what time and authority she has left in office to look at fixing universal credit, funding our schools and our further education colleges properly and raising the national living wage for under-25s, so that collectively we can deal with the root causes of poverty?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman raised a number of issues. As he will know, I believe that universal credit is a better system than the legacy system we inherited from the last Labour Government. It helps people into the workplace and ensures that, as they earn more, they are able to keep more of that money. On the back of the Augar review, which looked at post-18 education, I have indicated that I think it is important that we ensure that our further education colleges are funded and are able to provide an alternative route through education for those young people for whom that is right.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill (First sitting)

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th June 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Meg Hillier]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will come on to that.

The point of that experience is that it is not for us to prescribe how the Sponsor Body might do this, but a body managing a project of this size, with this range of work, can seek out and assist and support others to do it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside talked about having roadshows; there are Members in this House who will be the best advocates for their local businesses. I am sure that people who know that we are on this Committee and have an interest have come and told many of us about how their constituency provided elements of the existing building and could provide them again.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Tiles.

[Meg Hillier]

I think we will hear from the ceramics sector in a moment. There are an awful lot of opportunities for our local businesses. I am sure that local authorities and business organisations in different areas will be champing at the bit to prove that their organisations can do it.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside made a valid point about contracting. The Government have moved on with things like G-Cloud to make it easier for smaller businesses to contract, but the rules can be challenging. I would not want to prescribe anything in the Bill because I think it is challenging to prescribe in law, but I hope that the Sponsor Body—I will put it on the record, and I hope it will read or hear this—makes sure that the contracts are broken down into the right size. Often, for those procuring large contracts, it is simpler to secure one big one and to let the subcontractors to the big contract take up the work. The danger with that is that they are not subcontractors.

One of the things that we need to have in place is an audit system. With the Olympics, after the event no proper audit was done of the jobs that were supposed to be created locally. The National Audit Office could have direct access to those companies, which would be a great way forward, or the Sponsor Body could commission its own audit. As we have a National Audit Office serving Parliament, however, I think it would be an excellent place to do that. The outgoing Comptroller and Auditor General and his team were keen on that. I have not had the chance to speak to the new incumbent, who started his job—very nobly—on Saturday. It is early days for him, but I am hopeful that the NAO team is still willing to take that on, as I had that reassurance from them.

Unless we measure and monitor what is happening, games can be played—people and businesses can lose out. This measure does not need to cost more if the preparatory work is done, so that such businesses can apply. Think of the skills that this place could use—stonemasons, wood carvers and a huge range of other skills and niche businesses—some of which we might not have in the UK, but if we start planning now and thinking about what we might be doing, some businesses could adapt their production processes to provide some of the things that this House needs. The prospect of a big contract might make it worth their while to take that risk. Of course it is a risk—we cannot just give those companies a contract; they will still have to bid for it—but if they are willing to do that, we should give them every opportunity.

That yearly audit is vital, and the benefits will not happen otherwise. If the Sponsor Body goes down the route of having subcontractors, we have to have a way to ensure that the big companies really subcontract to specialists, not just to subcontractors they already know and work with, but opening things up more widely. The risk is that that will not happen, but I do not want to prescribe it in law because it is challenging.

If the amendment is adopted it would require the Sponsor Body to think about big project integration. Often with big projects—most recently with Crossrail—the challenge is to integrate the smaller contracts at the time just before delivery. Some of the bits of work will have to finish at around the same time, or in sequential order, to work properly, so the Sponsor Body would be required to think that through carefully in the early days. That is why I would like to get this in the Bill, so that the body has no excuse—in law, it would know what it has to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We can wait no longer for ceramics. I call Gareth Snell.

[Gareth Snell]

Thank you very much, Sir Gary. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

Before I touch on ceramics, as predictable as I am becoming in this place, I want to lend my support to amendment 2, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester. We know that trade union-recognised bodies tend to be safer and that their staff tend to be happier and to get jobs done more quickly and on time, because they have a reputation to work with. We also know—this is linked in part to new clause 1 and amendment 14—that where trade union bodies are involved in the construction industry, modern-day slavery is less prevalent.

I mention that because the construction industry will freely admit that it still has a problem with tackling modern-day slavery through gang labour. The best intentioned commissioning and procurement cannot guarantee what the layers of sub-procurement down the chain will deliver. A trade union-recognised employer would be able to work with supply chains to ensure that we do not unwittingly propagate modern-day slavery through the procurement and commissioning of large-scale infrastructure works linked to this place. There are already recorded instances of public bodies, without prejudice, finding themselves receiving services from people in modern-day slavery because of the way contracts are subcontracted out.

I support my hon. Friend’s amendment 2 because, by involving trade unions with employers at an early stage of large projects, we can ensure not only that we put our money into the fabric of the building, but that we put our values into the building. That has to be an important part of how this building moves forward.

I turn to the ceramics industry. My right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside mentioned the sums that are already being spent to keep the building going. Many hon. Members will have seen that the Minton tiles in Central Lobby, which were originally made in my constituency—in fact, by one of my predecessors, the Member for North Staffordshire in the 1870s—are being replaced, one at a time, by a wonderful company called Craven Dunnill. Where we already have skilled people on site doing remedial work, they ought to be involved in conversations now so we can work out what skills they can bring forward and how the procurement and commissioning process can be best placed. I do not mean that in the sense of helping them on a commercial basis, but they will be able to tell us what they can and cannot do and what the scope of the industry is. Because we already have a contractual working relationship with those companies, we have nothing to fear about the credibility of the advice they give.

That is why amendment 14 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch is so important. The ceramics industry in Stoke-on-Trent can make us pretty much anything we ask for, but I would wager that very few people know that. Yes, it can make tiles, teapots and tableware, but advanced ceramics is now a wonderful way of replacing metalwork—not that I have anything against metalwork, but ceramics are longer standing and have a greater tolerance for stress. There is an opportunity to build in—[Interruption.] Well, I am not quite on commission—if I were, I would declare it.

My point is that there are sectors of the UK economy doing wonderful work that many of us do not know about. Unless we ask them up front what is possible through the procurement process, we may end up doing what, I am afraid to say, often happens with the military: they decide they want something, so they buy that something. What they actually want is something that can do a certain thing, but they do not think about what else is available. Considering what we hope to achieve at the end rather than what we want to buy may create greater scope—

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. One of the problems in the building is that nobody has yet managed to count correctly the number of brass windows we have—it is either 4,800 or 7,200, depending on who we believe. Nobody makes those windows today, so somebody is going to have to start training people soon to try to replace them. It is the same in ceramics.

[Gareth Snell]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point. If we want something in the wall that will let in light, and that will let in cool air when it is hot and keep out cool air when it is cold, does it have to be a brass window of that design? Is there some other way of doing things? [Interruption.] We could do it in ceramics, but that might be slightly dark in daytime. We have not quite got transparent ceramics yet. The way we think about the outcomes will be important in shaping the procurement process. That is something that the Sponsor Body ought to be considering now, but with the industry alongside it, because nobody is better able to tell us what it can do than the industry itself.

I want to make a brief comment in support of amendment 14. The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 is a wonderful piece of legislation. It started as a private Member’s Bill, and it has allowed procurement and what we are actually paying for to be revolutionised. I urge the Government, when it comes to the point of working with the Sponsor Body, to frame how procurement should work. Yes, the cost—the value of the things that we are buying—is important, but the additional value that we can derive through the Act in the procurement process, in terms of opening up this vast investment to skills, new technologies, and research and development in different parts of the country, may have a lasting legacy beyond the jobs and employment contracts, which are very transactional. It may genuinely root changes in communities, which will benefit from this place. I will therefore be supporting the amendments.

[Kevin Foster]

This has been a fascinating debate, and a number of right hon. and hon. Members have made passionate points. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central strongly endorsed the ceramics industry, as always, and spoke about the quality of its products.

Yesterday, I had the joy of having a tour of the basement. If any member of the Committee has not yet had the opportunity to do so, I would strongly recommend it; they would be helping to make progress with this project. I saw the innovative sewer ejectors, which were put there in the 1880s. They have “Chester” on the side of them. The hon. Member for City of Chester will be delighted to hear that they have been such a functional part of this place for so many years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Snell]

Three-quarters of the encaustic tiles were made in Stoke-on-Trent. Unfortunately, the top quarter—the bit that everyone sees—was made in Telford, but it is rooted on a solid foundation from the ceramic city.

[Kevin Foster]

I am reassured, knowing the quality of the product that comes out of the Potteries. I still have a set of plates made in Stoke-on-Trent that I won in a raffle. I have had them for about 25 years, but they are still doing their job to this very day. That speaks to the quality of product from the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My assessment of where we are is that a majority does exist for the withdrawal agreement—the technical aspect of our leaving the EU—but the differences and difficulty are on the political declaration and where that may take us, where we may end up in that situation and what support and clarity the House will have in that process. Can the Minister give some assurances that the House will have a clear role in the next stage of the negotiations, so that we can avoid this merry-go-round at the next stage?

[Mr Lidington]

Yes, indeed. It is something to which the Government have been giving a lot of thought and has featured in conversations that Ministers have been having with Members across the House not just in the last few days but in the last several weeks. Various models could be adopted. In particular, there would be the question of the role of Select Committees—the Brexit Select Committee and other relevant departmental Select Committees—in the different aspects of that very wide-ranging negotiation. One lesson I have drawn from the experience of the last couple of years is that the House will insist on having a say and will find ways to express its view, including some novel initiatives. The reality is that the House is going to have a say and influence as the negotiations proceed, and I would hope that the agreement that I believe the Government will eventually succeed in striking will command widespread public support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

I agree with that sentiment. I have stood here and been critical of the red lines that the Prime Minister put in place at the beginning of the protest, and I have always seen them as the cause of the problem, but today is not really about an inquisition into that—although there will have to be one—because it is about whether we can find a way forward. I honestly think that many Members want to find a way forward and have been working to that end.

[Gareth Snell]

The Prime Minister was rightly questioned by Labour Members earlier as to whether she would honour and be bound by the result if the House were to come together on indicative votes and find a way forward, but the Prime Minister was unwilling to say that she would be. If this House comes forward and finds a majority for a deal that is different from Labour party policy, would we be bound by that and would we whip in favour of it?

[Keir Starmer]

I listened carefully to what the Prime Minister said, and I will say something about that in a minute. I think she was saying that she would not say in advance whether she would be bound, and we need to probe that, because it is an important point. However, we are getting slightly ahead of ourselves. The process that is envisaged, in the first instance, is to test whether there is a majority among different propositions, and we need to get to that stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

If we go through the process that I hope we can inaugurate this evening, one thing we will all have to do is seek compromise. We almost know that if we all vote for our first preference, we will never get to a majority solution. I do not believe there is a majority in favour of the first preferences of any person in this House.

[Gareth Snell]

We have heard today from the Prime Minister and from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) that there is no immediate guarantee that whatever majority we find in the House will become the established policy of either of the two main political parties. Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that we may end up in a situation in which we manifest a majority for a deal that is not quite right for the Conservative party and not quite right for the Labour party, and then the Whip system will kick in and there will suddenly be no majority in Parliament at all? In my mind, that makes no deal very dangerous and real.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

The danger that the hon. Gentleman speaks of is real—we all face it—but there is a solution to it, which is to ensure that as we approach a majority we sufficiently discuss that issue, not only among Back Benchers but with those on the two Front Benches, to ensure that there is what the shadow Secretary of State rightly referred to a few moments ago as a “sustainable majority”. We need not just a majority for something but a majority for something that will continue to persist as the various stages have to be carried through. That must be our aim.

Overseas Electors Bill

Gareth Snell Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 22nd March 2019 Commons Chamber

I think that the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton is getting grumpy because he is anxious to get on to his amendment. That is what this is really all about. He is in a grouch because he wants to stand up and lecture the world about his amendment, which he enjoys doing, and that is fair enough. But if he and his colleagues stopped interrupting me during my speech, we might make a bit more progress. By standing up and intervening every two minutes, his grumpiness at not getting on to his amendment is being reinforced because he is intervening all the time. Afterwards, because I am a generous kind of chap, I will have a chat with him and explain to him how best to get on to his amendments on a Friday if he wants to do so. The secret of success is not standing up and trying to intervene with a pointless intervention every two minutes. That is a good lesson for him to learn.

[Gareth Snell]

On pointless interventions, may I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) has one of the cheeriest, sunniest dispositions to be found on the Opposition Benches and never would the word “grumpy” apply to him? On the substantive matter, new clause 10 refers repeatedly to applications to vote

“by post or proxy by overseas electors in parliamentary elections.”

The hon. Gentleman will know that the practicalities of the system of overseas electing means that almost all those people will be voting by post and that having an opportunity to vote by proxy if they wish to appoint someone in this country is important. His proposal contains no content about emergency proxy votes to cover circumstances where the individual overseas might be entitled to make a late emergency proxy vote. To my knowledge, that can be done up until polling day itself if they are incapacitated. Has the hon. Gentleman given any thought to where that might fit into his amendments and to where future legislation may fix that problem?

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. He spoke earlier about the importance of polling stations and things like that, and I have points to make about them later. Wherever possible, the rules should be the same as they are for people here, so I think he makes a good point and perhaps we should all consider it if we ever manage to get back to it. I have every sympathy for the point he raises.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

rose—

[Gareth Snell]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

I have given up on the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton; he is certainly not taking my advice on how to get on to his amendment, so I will save him from himself and give way to his hon. Friend.

[Gareth Snell]

My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton is one of the finest parliamentarians that the hon. Gentleman will get to debate with. He should consider giving way to my hon. Friend—after my intervention, of course.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that is it not currently a crime in the UK to be registered in more than one parliamentary constituency at any given time—it is often the case for students, people who live in two different constituencies, and even Members of Parliament —but they cannot vote in more than one constituency at one time. Is the hon. Gentleman concerned that he might criminalise individuals who could register twice in the UK but not twice in the UK as overseas electors, thereby creating a two-tier registration threshold?

[Philip Davies]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. Personally, I see a difference, which is that people can quite legitimately register in different places in the UK because they can vote in all those places in a local election. If they are a council tax payer in Yorkshire and a council tax payer in Dorset, they are perfectly free to vote in both, quite properly and legally—there is nothing wrong with that—but they are not allowed to vote twice in a parliamentary election. They can register, but they can only vote once.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

Yes, I agree. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. These are serious offences, and the criminal justice system should see them as such, so I very much share his sentiments.

[Gareth Snell]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I will press on. I did not realise at the start of this morning how difficult it would prove to get through my modest amendments in the first group. I am determined to do so, even if I have to upset the hon. Gentleman.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. When there is a tight contest, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that a result could be delayed until everything has been checked. That is why the suggestion he made in Committee was a good one and one that I wanted to bring back. He is definitely on to something, and I agree with him.

I will gloss over amendments 49 and 50, because they are pretty minor points in the scheme of things.

[Gareth Snell]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I am going to crack on. I do not think anyone could say that I have not been generous in giving way.

Amendments 68 to 70 are linked to other new clauses that we have already discussed. I want to mention amendments 75 and 76. Amendment 76 would delay the coming into force of the extent, commencement and short title provisions by 12 months. I want to raise that because, whatever the merits or otherwise of a general election outside the fixed-term rules, it seems to me that if a general election were to be held sooner rather than later, this Bill coming into force immediately could cause some problems. Amendments 75 and 76 would delay the implementation of the Act for two years, which would give more time to prepare for the next general election, or even the one after, if we have one before the five-year term is up.

We could end up with people who are eligible to vote not being able to because the systems are not in place to cope with the rush. It would be blatantly unfair on qualifying overseas voters if some of their votes counted and some did not, and if some were able to register and some were not. I think that that can happen already, to be honest, but the problem would be made much worse if we extended the franchise and brought the provisions in very quickly. We would almost certainly create a problem.

All in all, I am sorry that we have had such a truncated operation and that my speech has gone on far longer than I anticipated. Obviously I was agitating some Members, and I wanted to accommodate their requests, because in all seriousness, that is how legislation should be debated in this place. We end up with better legislation when we listen to everybody’s point of view. We have heard in interventions today people making some very good points that we should bear in mind and that expose some of the flaws in the amendments I have tabled. That is why it is important that we go through this scrutiny of important pieces of legislation.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire for bringing his Bill this far. I hope that the provisions of the Bill will be introduced at some point, but with the necessary improvements. I urge the Government to listen again to the arguments made in Committee by the hon. Member for City of Chester and the hon. Member for Nottingham North in particular, because if their suggestions had been taken on board, this would have been a much better piece of legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I have not met Mr Shindler, but it is my understanding that he fought in the second world war. May I put it bluntly? We live in freedom today because of people like Mr Shindler and many hundreds of thousands like him who risked their lives, and we will never tire of making that case.

The hon. Member for Shipley made an extensive and detailed opening speech on his new clauses. As I say, many of them were very similar to, if not the same as, ones that I and my hon. Friends moved in Committee. He gave very detailed descriptions, so I do not want to go over them again in the time left available to us.

New clause 1 would mean that UK citizens who are considering moving abroad or in the process of doing so will be given a prompt by the electoral registration officer, if that officer receives information that leads them to believe that a registered elector is moving, to remind them to re-register. The hon. Member for Shipley is right: this is about stopping a huge rush of people registering in a short period before an election, so as to even out the burden on the electoral registration officer. It would reduce the workload of EROs, who would otherwise have to send out reminders to encourage new voters to register.

[Gareth Snell]

When the hon. Member for Shipley spoke to new clause 1, I mentioned the difference between people who have moved and those who are going to move. May I tease out a suggestion from my hon. Friend on how that issue could be overcome? An electoral registration officer will not know whether somebody has moved unless they have been told, yet under the new clause they would be compelled somehow to provide people with information on how to register as an overseas elector.

[Christian Matheson]

My hon. Friend is right, and given that the new clause seeks to reduce the burden on electoral registration officers, we would not want as an unintended consequence to increase that burden on officers, who would have to find voters who formerly lived in their constituency but who now live abroad. I imagine that the ERO would prompt people who are about to move abroad to register.

The new clause seeks to strengthen our democratic culture by encouraging voter registration. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) and my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) said earlier, the Government are currently narrowing that group by making it harder for people to register and vote in certain pilot areas where ID requirements have been introduced. I call on the Government to think again about whether they are genuinely concerned with widening voter participation and registration, or whether they are considering such matters only for overseas voters.

Under new clause 1, EROs must ensure that the voting register is as accurate and complete as possible. Each year they conduct an annual canvass of households, issuing and chasing inquiry forms. Household inquiry forms are sent to every household to confirm the details of those living at the property. Although those forms do not directly generate new registrations, they are critical to producing information about the country. Under the new clause, any information generated from those forms that suggests that a British person is moving or has moved abroad, should lead to a notification from the ERO to prompt that person to put themselves on the overseas voters register.

Voter awareness is crucial to this legislation. The hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) spoke about the role that British diplomatic posts could play in registering UK citizens abroad, and letting them know about the importance of voting. Once overseas voters are made aware of their eligibility, they are more likely to vote. The earlier that someone registers within the current 15-year time limit, the easier it is to keep them registered after that time limit, and we will therefore remove the possibility of a rush to register immediately before an election, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Shipley.

[Gareth Snell]

My hon. Friend is gracious with his time. Does he share my concern that the missed opportunity with new clause 1 is that there is no provision to help those already overseas who may suddenly gain the right to vote? Nothing in the new clause seeks to provide local authorities with the ability or resources to do that, yet there could be thousands of people for whom that situation is their everyday existence.

[Christian Matheson]

My hon. Friend’s analysis is almost certainly correct. I am a little concerned because the proposal was originally mine, so I cannot exactly blame the hon. Member for Shipley, but that is what scrutiny in this place is for. I will take my hon. Friend’s guidance and I am grateful for his insight into the deficiencies of new clause 1.

Moving, if I may, to new clause 3—