Business of the House

Geoffrey Cox Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Lady makes several very good points. The devolved Administrations continue to receive about 20% more funding per head than the UK Government spend on the same things in England, and there are many examples of the Scottish Government hanging on to those funds and not passing them on to councils or passing relief on to businesses, for example, which is very disappointing. She makes an interesting suggestion, and I will ensure that both the Cabinet Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities have heard her words.

[Sir Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

Just five years ago, the gates of Appledore shipyard closed. It was a picture of dereliction; its workforce dispersed to the four winds. But now it has experienced a glorious revival. It has several hundred employees and 45 apprentices, having been taken over by Harland & Wolff. A similar picture of prosperity and thriving is taking place in Belfast today. May we have a debate on the revival of English shipbuilding and shipbuilding in Northern Ireland, which has been presided over by this Government’s maritime shipbuilding strategy?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I could tell by the sounds of approval running across the whole House that were my right hon. and learned Friend to apply for a debate, it would be very well attended. This is something that I am very passionate about, and I am pleased to have worked with Appledore, and Harland & Wolff in Northern Ireland, and every shipyard around the UK, including the Scottish maritime cluster, to ensure that we can build some new ships and smooth out the fallow periods in those shipyards. This is an excellent topic for a debate, and I encourage him to apply for one.

Sittings of the House (29 March)

Geoffrey Cox Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The Attorney General can offer an assurance on that front. I know that he is satisfied, but it is for him to say.

[The Attorney General (Mr Geoffrey Cox)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. May I say on the proposal the Government are making that when the House listens to the rationale behind it and hears the full context of it, I am sure the House will accept that it is not only perfectly lawful and perfectly sensible, but designed to give this House the opportunity of availing itself of a right that the European Union has given us to avail ourselves of an extension until 22 May. The view of the Government is simply that we could not let the time limit expire at 11 pm tomorrow without allowing this House the opportunity to avail itself of that right, and it is perfectly reasonable and perfectly lawful.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[The Attorney General]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Speaker]

For the record I can say that the Attorney General is shaking his head, and he dissents from the hon. Lady’s proposition. Forgive me, because I think the House will want to move on, but I hope she will accept it if I say that that is a political point. It is an important point, and I am not knocking it in any way, but it is not germane to the remit of the Chair, nor—if I may politely say so—is it material to the sittings of the House motion with which we are now dealing.

[Mr Speaker]

I must say to people listening that I am mightily glad that the right hon. Gentleman was not asking me to adjudicate on that. It is very helpful that he has excused me from any responsibility. I do not sense that the Attorney General, who is comfortably seated on the Government Front Bench, is looking to come to the Dispatch Box, or indeed that the Leader of the House is inclined to do so. I think I can safely say—I do not think I will be accused of disclosing a state secret—that as things stand the Attorney General is intending to declaim from the Dispatch Box tomorrow.

[The Attorney General]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I rise out of respect for the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). This is clearly a matter that I shall address tomorrow morning in full. It requires serious consideration, as virtually everything the right hon. Gentleman says in this House is entitled to. I will address that point in full tomorrow.

[Mr Speaker]

Colleagues, the motion has been tabled, moved and spoken to in a perfectly orderly way. I suggest that we now hear from the shadow Leader of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

The shadow Leader of the House can answer for herself, but I simply say to the hon. Lady that if she is referring to the motion for tomorrow’s debate, that motion certainly was not in the Table Office at 4 o’clock, as far as I am aware. I discussed the matter with the Attorney General, and I can assure her that it certainly was not there at that time, or absolutely not in anywhere near its final form. I think I am quite clear about that. As to the sittings motion, that is a different matter.

[The Attorney General]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I rise out of respect to those asking questions about why the motion was late. I do apologise to the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz)—I was anxious to get it to her and to others as soon as I could—but I was particularly concerned that the motion should comply with your ruling, Mr Speaker. Therefore—I hope you will permit me to divulge this—as a result of some discussion with you, I am afraid that it was concluded only shortly before the time we came into the House. [Interruption.] Well, I cannot speak for that, but I say to the House that I am sorry it was late, but it was a matter that needed to comply with your important ruling, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

These things are subject to change. There was a version of the motion earlier this afternoon. The Attorney General and I met, as is perfectly reasonable and proper, and then there was a later version. However, I am quite certain in my own mind that the motion was not in the Table Office at 4 o’clock, and I think that the shadow Leader of the House has been misrepresented, if I may politely say so.

Committee on Standards (Reports)

Geoffrey Cox Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

It has been my privilege to serve on the Committee on Standards under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Kevin Barron) throughout this Parliament, and I put on record my gratitude to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, the registrar and the staff of those offices for the extraordinary diligence with which they have pursued their functions and roles. It has been an enormous pleasure to collaborate and work with them.

It is extremely important to remember the division of functions between the commissioner and the Committee. The commissioner is the rapporteur to the Committee. She will investigate and establish the facts and make recommendations. Ultimately, however, it is for the Committee to decide what the response and reaction to her report should be.

I remember very few occasions when the Committee has ventured to disagree, and even then it has done so with considerable trepidation and diffidence, and only in cases where the commissioner herself evinced a degree of uncertainty as to the correct conclusion. That is exactly the dialogue that should exist between commissioner and committee—a dialogue of mutual respect and collaboration, but of independence. Like the Chair of the Committee, I am not certain that the relationship between the two is always fully understood. I hope that it will be in future, and that the motions before the House will assist in the clarification of the roles and true function of the Committee.

The involvement of lay members was an innovation that some greeted with scepticism, but I have to say that having worked with them it is important to put on record the gratitude of all the elected members of the Committee for the way in which they approached their roles. It has been uniformly constructive, so much so that one of them was an extremely good chairman of the Sub-Committee responsible for one of the reports. It is a good report, and their involvement has been thoroughly constructive and helpful.

I therefore support the recommendation for an increase in the number of lay members, with some reservations. I am extremely pleased that no vote has been accorded to the lay members. There is no doubt, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, that the inclusion of unelected members on a House Committee would present considerable constitutional and legal complexities. It may well make the Committee susceptible to judicial review, with all the panoply of judicial intervention that that would mean, and I do not think that anybody in the House would really have wanted that. What I think we do need is a situation where the lay members’ influence is telling and, as it has been sometimes, decisive. That can be better done by the moral influence they exert and the constant sanction that exists—that they may append a minority report. That is, in many ways, a more compelling, more persuasive and more telling influence on Members’ thinking than any vote would be.

I commend the motions to the House. I heard the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) on the Opposition Front Bench express a concern that there may be a perception that the Whips have some mischievous and nefarious impact on the deliberations of the Committee. I can say two things to that. In four and a half years, I have never had a Whip try to influence me. I do not know whether that is just something to do with me or something to do with the fact that the Whips demonstrate commendable and appropriate restraint. However, I think that members of the Committee with whom I have served over this Parliament would reject with disdain any attempt by a Whip to influence the impartial and anxious consideration, which I have witnessed time and again, accorded by members of the Committee to very difficult individual and sometimes complicated circumstances in which a judgment is never right or wrong, never black or white, but can admit of disagreement.

If a Committee comprising a number of elected Members, with all their shared experience of the House, together with the one who is accused and lay members, can reach a consensus as we uniformly do, generally, I would submit, it is more likely than not that the right conclusion is reached. That is why I say to the hon. Lady that in many ways to bandy about the idea—I am not criticising her for a moment; I do understand the perception she speaks of—or even to suggest that Whips may have some influence or role on the Standards Committee is not helpful. It simply would not be tolerated by members of that Committee, in my experience. It would be, as I have said, rejected with disdain.

It has been an enormous privilege to serve on the Committee. It has caused a great deal of soul searching in many of the cases that have come before us. Some have been controversial and some have been less so, but throughout we have been assisted by the extraordinary skill, sophistication and professionalism of the officers who support us. I, for one, am deeply grateful to them, to the Chairman of the Committee and to all other members of the Committee with whom I have had the honour to serve.

Business of the House

Geoffrey Cox Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his welcome. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will assess the case for a statement in addition to answering questions on Tuesday. I do not want to commit him to that, but it has been our habit over the past four years to have regular statements on developing crises. Of course, the hon. Gentleman is right that the situation continues to develop. There have been further tragic deaths in Gaza. I am pleased that there is a humanitarian ceasefire in force for a short time today, but of course what we really need is an agreed and sustainable ceasefire and a restoration of the ceasefire of November 2012.

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

The Supreme Court has recently suggested that our law on assisted suicide may not be compatible with article 8 of the European convention on human rights, and it has issued an invitation to the House to consider that question. When will we respond to the invitation?

[Mr Hague]

The Prime Minister indicated yesterday that we will give consideration to that matter. It is an important and topical issue, on which there are very strong feelings—not on any party basis—and there is intense interest in the debate about it in the House of Lords tomorrow. I will reflect on when it would be appropriate to have such a debate, as well as on the various means of bringing it about. I cannot yet promise one in Government time.