Oral Answers to Questions

George Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The Government have looked at this carefully. We commissioned the Vickers report, which came up with the idea of ring-fencing, which was right. The key is that we want to ensure that, if a bank fails, it can fail safely, without taxpayers having to stump up the money to sort it out. That would be a major advance, and something the whole country would support.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister will be aware of the welcome news this morning that the Attorney-General’s application to quash the Hillsborough verdicts was upheld by the High Court. He will understand that that will involve the Hillsborough families in a great deal of legal costs to ensure that they are properly represented. Will he agree to waive the VAT on the CD “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”, the proceeds from which will go directly to the Hillsborough families to support their legal case?

[The Prime Minister]

I join the right hon. Gentleman in welcoming the decision made today. The Hillsborough families have long wanted this new inquest, and it is very good that the system has moved relatively rapidly since the Hillsborough statement and the Hillsborough debate in the House to help bring the decision about. I have received representations on the Hillsborough families’ single. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is currently on the other side of the Atlantic, but as the First Lord of the Treasury, I think I can confidently predict that there will be a decision that will go down well on Merseyside.

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), whose Committee—the Joint Committee on Human Rights—produced the best guide to the Government’s proposals and their weaknesses, and to the threats they pose to our current civil liberties.

In recent months, the Prime Minister rightly received plaudits for how he handled the apology for the Bloody Sunday massacre and the Finucane murder. He did so with great openness and sensitivity. Both inquiries exposed unlawful killing, either directly or indirectly, by agents of the state, and subsequent cover-ups. Thankfully, that sort of thing is extraordinarily rare in the UK. One reason why it is rare is that such things are exposed and deterred by an open and transparent system of justice—the whole system of justice, including the criminal judicial system, the inquest system and the civil courts system.

Measures in the Bill create the power to take parts of that civil judicial system not just out of the public domain —that already happens in some ways—but completely out of the normal judicial testing procedure. Under the Bill, evidence can be presented by the Government that the other side and their defence lawyers cannot see. That evidence cannot be tested, and therefore may be wholly wrong and misleading, which undermines the very thing that makes our system work.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

What role does the right hon. Gentleman imagine a defence lawyer would have in such proceedings?

[Mr Davis]

A defence lawyer has the role of challenging the evidence, but I will come back to the right hon. Gentleman’s point later.

The Bill is, in the words of Lord David Pannick, a leading barrister—indeed, he is the Government’s leading barrister of choice—“unnecessary, unfair and unbalanced”. He said it is unnecessary because we already have the public interest immunity system.

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[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I am not entirely sure that we will see completely eye to eye in our contributions, but I hope that we will have the opportunity to debate the subject further.

As a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I welcome the proposals in Part 1 of the Bill. They will go a long way to ensuring that the scrutiny of our intelligence agencies is more robust and transparent. In turn, that will give the British public a greater degree of reassurance that the intelligence agencies are properly and fully scrutinised. That is important because they spend a great deal of public money—approximately £2 billion—and because they are involved in some of the most controversial and difficult areas of our national life and operations across the globe.

I commend to the Minister the amendments ably and deftly moved by my colleagues Lord Butler of Brockwell and the Marquess Lothian in the other place, particularly in relation to the issue about not limiting the Committee to dealing entirely with retrospective matters, but giving it some freedom to look at current issues if that is what the Government want us to do. I hope the amendments will be adopted.

I want to add my thanks to those from the Chair of the Committee and from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) to our current secretariat. They are few in number, but the work they do is amazing. I do not think that the Committee would fulfil its role in the way that it does without their insight, intelligence and intellect, and I pay tribute to them.

If Part 1 of the Bill is relatively uncontentious, the same cannot be said of part 2. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, repeated the phrase that these proposals are a “radical departure” from our normal system of justice. That is also what Lord Pannick said in the other place and was the basis of all the evidence put before the Joint Committee. Yes, it is a radical departure. Under our normal system of justice, evidence is heard in open court and challenged by adversarial cross-examination, and the judge weighs the evidence and comes to a reasoned judgment at the end of the case.

[Mr George Howarth]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, although these proposals are a radical departure, the circumstances in which they would be used are also a radical departure?

[Hazel Blears]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Since the terrorist threat to the country has increased, particularly since 9/11, and remains a significant threat, clearly other measures have had to be taken.

That is exactly the point: although everyone is saying that these proposals are a radical departure, actually we have trodden this path before. As the Minister responsible for taking the control order legislation through the House, I know only too well the depth of feeling among Members on both sides of the House—this is hugely controversial stuff about which people have very strong feelings. It is contentious among the legal profession, and there are many different views among judges and practitioners, but, as has been said, none of us wants to go down this path—it is not something that we relish doing—but, if we are to protect national security and to have a fair hearing of these issues, we have no other option.

Last night, I tried something that the judges will have to do, which was a little balancing act: I drew up a table of arguments for and against the proposals to highlight in my own mind where the balance in the Bill should lie. First, on the “for” side—the reasons I support the proposals for closed procedures—was the need to protect our international relationships and liaison with countries across the globe. Yes, that is about America, but it is not just about America; increasingly, many of the plots that threaten the UK have an international element and much more work now has to be done upstream—in the words of the security agencies—to disrupt terrorist training and plots that might manifest themselves in this country unless we can do work internationally as well as in this country. That means we have to have these relationships. They are fundamental to the success of our fight against terrorism.

Some people have asked whether the threat that America might not co-operate with us as much as it has in the past is real, or whether it is something that the security agencies are making up to force us down this path. As the Americans would say, “You bet it’s real”. When the Committee visited America last year, we were told in no uncertain terms by law officers, the CIA and a whole host of agencies that the damage done not so much by the information in the Binyam Mohamed case, but by the breaching of the control principle had shaken that relationship—I would not say to its foundations, because it is a very strong relationship, but it had shaken it—and resulted in a lack of information sharing.

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[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker), who set out neatly and succinctly the competing principles that we are dealing with, particularly with regard to clause 2.

I speak as someone who has had the privilege of sitting on the Intelligence and Security Committee since 2005. Without trying to amplify my own influence, that nevertheless gives me a certain insight into the matters under discussion. I will say a brief word about part 1 and then rather more about part 2.

As a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I welcome part 1 pretty much without reservation. Two issues have still not been fully addressed, but I think they can be resolved in Committee. The first relates to the oversight of operations, particularly when they are ongoing. We have had oversight of ongoing operations on occasion, and that ability, with the co-operation of the agencies, has been quite important. That issue has not been fully resolved in the Bill. I hope that it will be resolved through further amendments or the proposed memorandum of understanding, but we are not quite there yet.

[Paul Goggins]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is very important that the Bill does not prevent the Intelligence and Security Committee from undertaking the tasks and inquiries that it currently carries out?

[Mr Howarth]

My right hon. Friend’s assertion is right. I do not think it is anybody’s intention that that should happen, but we have concerns that the current wording might lead to that inadvertently.

The second issue, which has been referred to by several hon. Members and initially by the Chairman of the ISC, the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), relates to the resources that it will take for the Committee to do the job that is envisaged in the Bill. I do not want to labour the point, but we are being asked to do a great deal more. I think that it is right to extend what we, as the representatives of this House in such matters, can do, but it will take more resources. As others have said, the secretariat of the Committee is working exceptionally long hours, often without any additional remuneration. People cannot be expected to do that indefinitely, especially when the amount of work that they have to do is increasing. I hope that the staffing issue can be put to bed before the Bill gets much further.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

In support of what the right hon. Gentleman, who is also my friend, has just said, the House should bear it in mind that it is not just a quantitative increase in resources that is required. If that increase is forthcoming, there will be a qualitative change because, as the Chairman of the ISC pointed out, the new people will act like investigators, going into the agencies and thus giving a realistic prospect of seriously close scrutiny.

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[Mr Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman is correct and I am glad that he has added to what I have said.

I will address my remarks on part 2 to closed material proceedings. Usually, if I find myself in agreement with the Minister without Portfolio and the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) on these matters, it means that I am in the wrong and I change my position. They tend to be far more liberal than me on these matters.

[Mr Straw]

Not difficult.

[Mr Howarth]

Indeed. However, I am reassured by the unholy alliance that has been formed between my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). That has made me feel a little more secure about the extent to which I agree with those other Members. I rather think that I have brought on an intervention with that remark.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

An intervention has indeed been brought on. Will my right hon. Friend concede that during all the time we have been in Parliament, we have always disagreed on anti-terrorism laws? I continue with my position, because I believe in the power of the courts rather than in secrecy.

[Mr Howarth]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In fact, we have almost never agreed on anything, and as far as I am concerned, long may that continue.

I shall try to make it clear where I stand and what I think happened as the Bill progressed through the other place. I start with a proposition that almost everybody would agree with—perhaps everybody other than my hon. Friend. It is that the state has to be able to hold secrets. That is not a desirable state of affairs, but the reality of relationships around the world and the problems that we face even within our own country are such that the state sometimes has information that should remain uniquely its property.

If that is the case, the question arises of what should happen in court proceedings. Closed material proceedings relate to civil cases. I do not know whether anybody other than me, sad as I am, has read the history of the agencies involved, but this is not a new phenomenon. As far back as world war one, some cases simply did not go to court because the agencies concerned did not want their networks, individual agents and practices exposed in a court of law. That is not new. What is new is that we now have cases exported from abroad, as it were, and heard in our courts for civil reasons.

The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden came to the debate, said a few words and went—he does not seem to have listened to anybody else’s argument, but that is a matter for him. He made two fundamental mistakes, and I will deal with them in turn. First, he gave an example of what must have been a Special Immigration Appeals Commission case in which a special advocate had been used and the case had been overturned as a result of his being privy to certain information. The right hon. Gentleman prayed that in aid as an argument against special advocates, but as far as I could tell it was an argument in exactly the opposite direction. His point was flawed in that respect.

Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman seemed to misunderstand the control principle. It means that when agencies representing two nations share information, the originator of that information has control over what happens to it when it is shared. He cited the Binyam Mohamed case and was right that some of the evidence that emerged in a British civil court had previously been heard in a court of the United States’ jurisdiction. However, that does not alter the principle. The fact that that information could have been found by other means does not mean that the originator of the intelligence does not still own it. The problem was a breach of principle rather than the actual information that came out in the British court.

I echo what several Members have already said: I and many others have reason to know that there have been cases in which lives in this country have been saved because of shared information. To be blunt, if we cannot continue to share information with our counterparts, particularly in America, but not exclusively, lives will be lost. That is the tough, blunt reality of the choice that we have to make. I have no doubt that the balance of the argument lies with a system that many people say, from pure legal principles, is imperfect, but it is the best system that anyone has been able come up with to deal with the problem. I have no difficulty in supporting part 2, and I have no difficulty in supporting Second Reading if there is a Division.

Finally, we have to make a choice on closed material proceedings—the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) made a point about that in an intervention. We also have to make a choice about whether it is better not to defend civil cases because we know from the arguments that PII will not resolve the issue; it just means that nothing will be heard. Do we not defend those civil actions, many of which are probably founded on dubious grounds, and carry on paying out millions of pounds in compensation, even in cases where we know that the person concerned had bad intent to this country and its citizens? I think I know what my constituents think about that issue. I know where I stand: the answer is no, we should not carry on spending that money for that purpose.

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[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie). I want to put on record my thanks to, and admiration for, him for forming the all-party group on extraordinary rendition and his work on exposing the awfulness of extraordinary rendition and how many Governments, either willingly or unwillingly, were deceived into allowing it to take place through their jurisdictions. The House owes him a debt of gratitude for that.

The hon. Gentleman is also right about the speed with which we are considering the Bill. I suspect we will return to major human rights issues in the near future. The Commission on a Bill of Rights has just published its report, which makes excellent reading. I urge all parliamentarians who see their role as protecting civil liberties in our society to read the authoritative essay in the report by Baroness Helena Kennedy and Phillipe Sands QC. They make the point of building on the past rather than destroying the march towards an open society in which we have genuinely independent judicial systems.

I want the House to consider the Bill—particularly in Committee when we come to reform it—in the context of the power of the secret state: the very large power held by the security services in our society and how, in every western state, they have grown enormously since 2001 and the declaration of the war on terror.

Guantanamo Bay is a product of that thinking. It is a most evil institution that has treated people abominably, denied them any right to justice or proper access to judicial process, and tortured them and kept them there for many years. Our country took part in the extraordinary rendition of people from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay. Indeed, rendition even took place through Diego Garcia, which is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, by the use of the US base there.

Political opportunism led us from being an enemy of Colonel Gaddafi to being a friend of Colonel Gaddafi then an arms supplier to Colonel Gaddafi. We were apparently so involved in his operations that our security services were prepared to hijack one of his enemies from another jurisdiction and take him back to Libya, where he was subsequently tortured by Gaddafi’s henchmen. That information was uncovered only in the chaos and rubble of Tripoli. So far £2.2 million has been paid in compensation, which I assume avoids the embarrassment of an open court case with Sami al-Saadi. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) pointed out, the Belhaj case is still pending and cannot be discussed. There is a lesson here about our easy acceptance of the power of the secret state and the security services, which has led us to this appalling situation where that amount of money has to be paid because of clear transgressions of the rights and justice of an individual who was standing up for the society he believed in—something that we claim to want all around the world.

The Bill deals with two or three issues that I want to cover briefly in the short time available, the first of which is parliamentary oversight. When I first came into the House in 1983, there was no parliamentary oversight of security services at all. It was an article of faith in the Labour party at that time—my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) and I may agree on this particular point—that there should have been some parliamentary oversight of the security services. There we have it—agreement on this occasion.

[Mr George Howarth]

I would not want my hon. Friend to take this too far, though.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am very cautious about claiming agreement and support at any stage, but I thank my right hon. Friend for that. I am sure that he would acknowledge that, despite the demand for parliamentary oversight and the subsequent considerable reforms of the House of Commons—achieved mainly by the former hon. Member for Cannock Chase Tony Wright—where we now have elected Select Committees and a much greater sense of openness in our business, the Intelligence and Security Committee seems to have avoided the reform process altogether. It is the only Select Committee where its members are appointed by the Prime Minister, in consultation with the Leader of the Opposition, and where the Chair is elected by the Committee rather than by a vote by party caucuses of the whole House. Its reports are published, yes, but one wonders how much is told to our colleagues on the Committee. I have no great ambitions or expectations of being appointed to it, but in an elected process all kinds of things could happen. Patronage is one of the great traditions of the British Parliament. It creates the illusion that the security services are accountable. I would have hoped that the Committee would have given the security services an extremely hard time over Sami al-Saadi, in whose case the British security services were clearly involved, over Guantanamo Bay, over Diego Garcia and over many other issues.

The second point I want to raise concerns the process that has led us to this pass of having a degree of secrecy in our courts. I opposed the establishment of the Special Immigration Appeals courts because they were anathema to everything we believe in: a special judge alone has access to the evidence; the defendant has no access to it; the defendant’s barrister has no access to evidence that he can share with his client; only the prosecutor has access to it. The whole issue is stacked against the defendant, and therein lies the potential for the most massive miscarriages of justice. Those of us who have spent much of our lives campaigning against miscarriages of justice will be well aware of past secrecy and the need for openness.

In opening, the Minister without Portfolio made much of the fact that the closed material procedure would be decided by a judge. Clause 6(2) states that

“a party to the proceedings (whether or not the Secretary of State) would be required to disclose material in the course of the proceedings to another person (whether or not another party to the proceedings)”,

where

“the degree of harm to the interests of national security if the material is disclosed would be likely to outweigh the public interest in the fair and open administration of justice, and”

where

“a fair determination of the proceedings is not possible by any other means.”

It seems to me that the Secretary of State would have considerable power in that situation.

I hope that the House understands the depth of feeling among many eminent people outside the House who have spent their lives campaigning for justice—against all the odds—and sometimes achieved it. Those who campaigned on Hillsborough eventually achieved justice, as did those who campaigned for the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. I do not want us to create yet another situation in which future miscarriages of justice can take place.

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[Mr Bain]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I will give a similar example later in my remarks that bears out the point that the Government must be careful on how their proposals tie with the common law right to natural justice.

[Mr George Howarth]

My hon. Friend referred to clause 7 and my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) referred to a special advocate. To some extent, are those points not covered by clause 7(1)(d) and (e), which relate to the need to provide a summary? It is not quite the same as gisting, but a summary would give the sort of information my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington implies does not exist.

[Mr Bain]

I respect my right hon. Friend’s point, but the Law Society and many constitutional lawyers are not completely taken that the Bill provides sufficient protection in terms of common law judgments. As the debate continues in Committee, I hope we can impress upon the Government the advantages of giving greater safeguards in clause 7 to individuals and their legal advisers.

A number of decisions have created the presumption that it is not enough for an individual to be informed of a hearing affecting his or her rights or freedoms. There is also an obligation to inform them of the gist of the case—that comes from common law. That principle is vital, not least in a society governed in accordance with the rule of law. I hope the Government therefore take the advice they have received from the Law Society and others, and that they are prepared to support an amendment in Committee if the Bill receives a Second Reading.

In the Minister’s opening speech, he cited Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers in support of the principle of CMPs in exceptional cases, but perhaps he might reflect on the fact that Lord Phillips has pointed out that, if a closed material procedure is brought into law, it would “undoubtedly be challenged” in both the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights. The Government must therefore establish that any incursion into the fair trial rights that are protected by article 6(1) of the convention is the minimum necessary and subject to suitable available safeguards and protections. The Bill allows insufficient protection of the continued balancing of interest after a CMP has been granted—that was pointed out by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and in the Bingham Centre response to the Green Paper. In allowing insufficient protection, the Bill unsettles an element of Scots law that has existed since 1956. I hope that the Minister resolves that problem in Committee.

As Tom Hickman, of University college London wrote for the UK Constitutional Law Group’s website on 27 November, in the absence of

“such a balance, CMP operates like a black box from which no information of any use or interest emerges. All information of even marginal sensitivity is immune from disclosure even if this is overwhelmingly in the interests of justice for it to be disclosed.”

The point was made more clearly in the decision in an analogous control order case—the case of CC and CF—earlier this year. British authorities admitted that they were involved in the arrest, detention and deportation of the defendants, but the defendants were given no reasons why they lost in the case, nor were they provided with any detail on the Government’s arguments, because the judge said that that part of the judgment must remain closed—the other party was excluded from it. The Government, by accepting reasonable amendments, could surely avoid such cases in the civil courts, if the CMP is introduced, and avoid the outcome warned of by the Intelligence and Security Committee. The Committee recommended restricting the use of CMPs to: UK intelligence material that would, if disclosed publicly, reveal the identity of UK intelligence officers or their sources, and their capability, including techniques and methodology; and to foreign intelligence material provided by another country on a strict obligation of confidentiality.

Even Cabinet minutes are not excluded from disclosure in a case involving serious misconduct by a member of the Cabinet, so why are the Government adopting such a restrictive interpretation in relation to the public interest balance in clauses 6 and 7? I hope the Minister will answer two further questions in his response. If the system comes into operation, will the Government pledge to review it, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights advised, and place that commitment in the Bill? Secondly, will the Minister accept the amendment made in the other place to permit both parties to apply for CMP, not just the state?

The debate has been about balance. This has been a genuinely constructive and helpful debate, both for Opposition Members and Government Members. The Government have made some progress. I hope that in Committee considerably more progress is made, so that we can ensure that the interests of the state and national security are undoubtedly protected, but that we do not cast away the hard-won liberties of the individual.

Hillsborough

George Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I hope that my hon. Friend is right that Liverpool fans the country over—the world over—will feel that way. As I have tried to explain, however, there is something else they need to feel, and that is not just that they have got to the truth but that the rest of the country now understands what this search for the truth was all about. That is so important in righting the wrongs of the past 23 years.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister delivered his statement with the clarity and sensitivity of somebody who knows what it is to lose a loved one. With Mr and Mrs Joynes, who then lived in my constituency, I attended a day of the inquest. It was one of the most harrowing events I have ever attended and it was offensive for the reasons the Prime Minister set out, but it was also ineffective, because of the deeply flawed decision on the 3.15 cut-off point. I accept that the Attorney-General has to follow the proper process, but I hope that when he considers the matter he will take into account just how deeply flawed the process was.

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman speaks with much power, having attended the inquest. The point is not only that it was 23 years ago and that inquests and the coroners’ system have moved on, but specifically that the decision on the 3.15 cut-off point, as detailed in the report, seems beyond defence. This has to be done properly, of course, but I hope that those who make the decision will consider that point carefully.

House of Lords Reform Bill

George Howarth Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy). I am sure he will accept that I do not agree with the entirety of his speech, but he made it in his usual moderate and thoughtful way.

The right hon. Gentleman leads me to my first point. It is often said that the House of Commons is at its best when it is discussing huge constitutional issues. I tend to differ with that view. I believe that we are at our very worst, because we look inwards on ourselves and talk about the effect of a change on this or that party or on us as a political class, instead of facing outwards and considering what the wider public care about.

I should start by stating my own position. Like the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) and several others, I am a unicameralist. There are examples both in the UK and abroad that show us how a unicameral legislative system can work effectively and efficiently.

The upper Chamber, the House of Lords, is historically anachronistic. Several Members have gone into great detail about that, but we need only to read primitive children’s history books to understand why it is the case. Even in its current state, there is an anomaly: it contains hereditary peers alongside those who are appointed. That is not a satisfactory way to structure a legislature.

I accept that, as has been said, there are Members of the House of Lords who bring to bear their knowledge and experience, which is often reflected in the quality of the debates that take place there. That in itself is not sufficient for it to continue in its present form, but it has to be said that that is the case.

I have to accept that there is not a majority in this House that agrees with me about the abolition of the House of Lords. On the basis that turkeys never vote for Christmas, there most certainly would not be such a majority in the other place. Nevertheless, reform runs logically counter to the views of anybody who, like me, believes in abolition.

It has been said repeatedly, not least by the Deputy Prime Minister, that all three parties—the two in the coalition and my own party—referred to reform of the House of Lords in their manifestos. That is true, but I doubt whether many right hon. and hon. Members put it in their election addresses. I can say with absolute certainty that it was not an issue that was discussed in Knowsley at the last general election, or any other. Nevertheless, it was in all three parties’ manifestos, and I believe that we need to make some progress on it. However, this Bill is not the way to do that.

I will not go into great detail about all that is wrong with the Bill, because time forbids. However, the 15-year term offends any sense of accountability whatever. It is beyond my wildest imagination how anybody who is elected for a 15-year term, with a rule that they cannot stand again, can in any way be considered accountable.

As we know from the European elections, the partly closed, partly open regional list system hardly sets the world on fire. The turnout that those elections manage to attract is pitiful, and in my region, the north-west, there is the unintended consequence that members of the British National party end up getting elected.

I return to where I started. On such issues, we need not to look in on ourselves but to look out at what the wider public think. The only way that we can do justice to that aspiration, which I hope others share, is to have a referendum on the subject. If we are to change the second Chamber, we should do so on the basis that we have public support, not just the support of the political classes. I hope that at some point in the proceedings, if the Bill gets that far, we will have an opportunity to vote for an amendment stating that there should be a referendum on it.

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[Mr Heath]

The right hon. Gentleman says “Do it now.” I asked him dozens of times how long he had waited for this Bill, and he never replied. Not once, so he can pipe down!

Others argue that they want reform, but not now, as there are and always will be other priorities. They are absolutely right that economic issues must be pre-eminent. That is the reason for this coalition Government, but it does not stop the House doing other things, and it never has. It did not prevent this House from passing one of the most important pieces of legislation on social policy we have ever had—the Education Act 1944—in the middle of a world war. I simply do not believe that this House cannot address more than one issue at a time.

A variety of Members said that they want reform, but not this reform. Some have argued that it is a mixture of proposals and not the unadulterated product of a single party’s programme. That is true, but these are the same people who also argue that we have failed to listen to others and that we have failed to reach consensus. We have tried to find common ground between the parties, and that is what is before us today.

[Mr George Howarth]

Will the Deputy Leader of the House tell us when, during the course of that 101 years that he mentioned, the notion of a 15-year term first came about?

[Mr Heath]

The right hon. Gentleman may not have noticed that we have had 14 months discussing these proposals, including by a Joint Committee of both Houses that looked at these proposals. We have had detailed scrutiny of this Bill, and we will continue to do so.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

George Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think my hon. Friend is right. We have to crack this, we have to deal with it and we have to do it in a way that restores public confidence, but then we must get on to the other things our constituents care passionately about.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Given the importance of the BSkyB decision to the balance of broadcasting in this country, why did the Prime Minister think it necessary to take himself outside the decision-making process?

[The Prime Minister]

I am going to go further in a minute in my speech and suggest that it may be the case that we should take politicians out of all decisions about media mergers altogether, but I was recognising the fact that if you are the leader of a party, you are trying to win over newspapers, television and all the rest of it, so the more you can take yourself out of decisions about future media structures, frankly, the better for all concerned. I do not understand why the right hon. Gentleman does not get that.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

George Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Shepherd]

I am obliged for the courteous and pleasant way in which that was said. Mirror, mirror on the wall, I know that I am—[Laughter.]

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I apologise for missing the beginning of the hon. Gentleman’s speech. I wonder whether I may risk leading him astray. How does he think a fixed five-year term for this House stands alongside the proposals for a 15-year term for some peers in the other place?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) and I can both guess whether he should go down that line. I think the answer is that he should not. Can he please come back to the amendments?

Oral Answers to Questions

George Howarth Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I cannot anticipate exactly what will be said in those meetings, but I am sure the hon. Gentleman, and everybody who has followed the case with great interest over a long period, welcome the fact that the Home Secretary has made it quite clear that she is available to listen to new representations from Gary McKinnon, his family and his solicitors; that she will judge that new information against the impact on his human rights; and that she will make up her mind in a quasi-judicial form as soon as possible.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister explain how a second Chamber elected under a different voting system, some of whose Members could be elected for 15 years, and almost certainly on a different manifesto altogether, would improve the legislative process?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I always thought that the Labour party was against bastions of privilege and patronage. I thought that one of the founding principles of the so-called progressive party was that it believed that the British people should be in charge, not politicians in Westminster. Labour Members seem to be turning their backs, yet again, on one of their many long-standing traditions.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

George Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Cox]

I have heard that observation made, and I hope that the Minister will be able to address it. I do not feel quite as concerned as hon. Members who have expressed their views on that point, and I will say why. A court would very soon see through an argument that went: “The Speaker has not issued a certificate in circumstances where we”—the party bringing the application to the court—“think he should have done.” The reason is that if a certificate is conclusive for all purposes, so must the absence of a certificate be. I do not believe for a moment that a court would see the matter any other way when the Speaker had chosen not to make a certificate. Otherwise, we would have to have a provision in the Bill saying that if the Speaker chooses not to certify, that should not be challenged either. It must be implied that if a Speaker made a deliberate and conscious choice not to certify, the absence of the certificate—that choice—must equally be conclusive, and I think that most courts would see it that way. One could argue that that should be explicit in the Bill, but for my purposes, I would not have thought a court would find impressive an argument that said that a Speaker who decided not to certify could be judicially reviewed, whereas if he had certified—let us say, in the negative—he could not be. That would be pointless.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

The issuing or non-issuing of a certificate is a slightly false comparison. The issuing of a certificate would result in action—providing that it was not challenged successfully in a court—whereas the non-issuing of a certificate would, I presume, simply preserve the status quo.

[Mr Cox]

What is the point of a certificate? It is not going to be challenged in a court, because the Government and this House will instruct the courts not to look at it. The point of the certificate is merely to express in writing the Speaker’s view that something had been a motion of confidence. If he does not issue a certificate, it is plainly the case that he has reached the view that it is not a motion of confidence. However, it is highly unlikely that the mere fact that a Speaker had produced that view but not committed it to a piece of paper would induce the courts to enter that territory and issue what used to be called a writ of mandamus—it is now called a mandatory order—to force him to do so. I find that improbable and implausible. I hope that the Minister will draw some comfort from that, but he should not draw complete comfort from it, because the mere fact that we are considering whether the courts would or would not be able to enter this territory will induce litigants, lobby groups and political groups to bring these very applications before the courts to test out the territory. It will not be long before the courts start to consider the extent to which the Bill allows them in, and the extent to which it does not. That is where the hon. Gentleman of whose constituency I am shamefully ignorant—

Oral Answers to Questions

George Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do think this is important. For years, we were spending lots of money on housing but not building any houses—why? Because there was no incentive for local authorities and few incentives for house builders. We are changing that so that even though the resources are limited, a lot more house building will go ahead.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Q13. I am sure that the Prime Minister will agree that education is a powerful agent for social mobility. While I welcome in principle the pupil premium, emerging details seem to suggest that taken together with the withdrawal of the education maintenance allowance, it could deter some young people from staying on in education. Will he agree to meet a delegation of experts to address that very specific problem?

[The Prime Minister]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman takes this extremely seriously, as do I. I have seen the letter that he has written to the Education Secretary, who I am sure would be happy to meet him to discuss this. Basically, what is happening is that we are seeing per-pupil funding that is not being cut, and on top of that we are going to see the £2.5 billion of the pupil premium. That will mean overall that the education budget rises by £3.6 billion across this Parliament. That is a substantial funding increase. I am sure that the pupil premium will have the positive effect that the right hon. Gentleman wants and that I want, but I am also sure that he can look at the detail of it with the Education Secretary.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

George Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Laing]

It is kind of the hon. Gentleman to stand up for my right hon. Friend, as I do frequently, but my right hon. Friend is not, of course, the leader of a political party in the House. The Prime Minister is leader of the Conservative party, with a large proportion of the popular vote throughout the country behind him, and undertakes that task very well indeed.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I am filled with admiration at the extent to which the hon. Lady is managing to disagree with herself. Could she return to the question put by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd), and the legitimate point that there will be parties that receive significantly less than the threshold that she proposes, and will thus have no voice in the process? That cannot be democratic.

[Mrs Laing]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. He is right, too, in his first point:

“Frailty, thy name is woman.”

I can disagree with myself or anyone else when called to do so. If it is my duty, I can be—well, I think we will leave that aside.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Cash]

I agree with my hon. Friend on that, but there was also the sense of outrage that was being expressed. As that occasion has been raised three times already, let me mention in passing that, as it happens, it took place on the day that I was born, but there we are.

What does such innovation say about the coalition? It certainly demonstrates its determination to stack the cards firmly in favour of the coalition and the Whips. There may well be one third whom the coalition cannot take for granted or persuade, but I fear that that attitude is taking power away from Parliament—which, after all, is made up of the representatives of the people—and not giving it back. If the same principle were followed for any other motion, Parliament would simply not be able to carry out its business. I fear that what is proposed is not modernising, but is a reactionary measure. It is not progress, but a step backwards, along the primrose path, undermining the constitutional principles that have governed our conventions and been tested over many centuries. The proposal has been conjured out of thin air, for the ruthless purpose of maintaining power irrespective of the consequences. In my opinion, it is a great shame that it has been put forward on the proposition that—as was said in the general election and at the conference that took place recently—we are supposed to be “Working together in the national interest”. I fear that on this Bill, on this matter, we are working together against the national interest.

[Mr George Howarth]

Long before anybody else on the Opposition Benches supported amendment 4, standing in the name of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), I added my name to it. I listened carefully to what he said. He used the terms “Whips” and “patronage” to describe what he believes lies behind the provisions in clause 2, which I think is just a shorthand way of saying that we are talking about monolithic party structures that, generally speaking, follow whoever happens to be leading at any given time, and the instruments of that are the Whips and patronage.

I am a party political creature. I would not be in this House under any title other than that of “Labour Member of Parliament”. However, at the same time, I believe that we are sent here to exercise our judgment, particularly on issues such as that we are discussing, which, as the hon. Gentleman said, have not really been tested before the electorate. Fixed-term Parliaments and the alternative vote system were in our manifesto. However, the provisions in clause 2 that he has discussed were in nobody’s manifesto, so I feel in no way obliged to support them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) may correct me on this, but those who follow history, such as the hon. Gentleman, will know that it was quite common in the early to mid-19th century for Governments to change and for votes of no confidence to be taken. In fact, quite often the country would go for several weeks without an effective Government in place. However, the difference then was that party political labels were almost meaningless: the Liberal party did not exist in the form that we later came to know, while the Conservative party was a collection of factions.

In those days, it was possible for Governments to change their leadership and even the coalition that supported that leadership without there necessarily being a general election. We do not live in such circumstances now, and it is important to be mindful of the arrangements that we put in place for the Dissolution of Parliament or any other means by which to change a Government in mid-term.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

In reality, if a Prime Minister commands a majority in the House of Commons, instead of seeking to obtain a two-thirds majority in the House, will they not simply repeal or amend the Bill?

[Mr Howarth]

My hon. Friend makes a typically good and well thought through point. I do not want to make a long speech, but the simple point—this is why I support the hon. Member for Stone—is that if the House decides by a simple majority that it has lost confidence in the Government of the day, that should be enough.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about trying to remove powers from the Prime Minister, but I am not sure that all the amendments that he supports would do that. I think that, in a fairly effective way, the powers would remain pretty heavily with the Executive.

I am not fully persuaded of the case for the amendment. I fully accept the argument that it would bring some clarity and put some control in the hands of the House. However, there could well be good, logical reasons for having an election that occurred to people at the time, possibly well in advance of a due election date. There could be political difficulties in one of the devolved regions that are leading to elections there, or particular market issues, or all sorts of crises in Europe—although I do not want to excite the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) with that prospect. A variety of reasons could create a coincidence of interest across a number of parties from a number of places to say, “We’ll have an early election”, and a date could be set without necessarily having to do it in crisis mode for six weeks hence.

The beauty of a fixed-term Parliament is meant to be that, because we all know the dates, we do not create uncertainty and have political rushes and get all sorts of brinkmanship games being played. However, if this House is to have the power to dissolve early, it can have that power but not necessarily the power to do it immediately. It can have the power to give due notice that the date is being brought forward but without waiting until just six weeks beforehand. If there is merit in a fixed-term Parliament, there is also merit in leaving this House the opportunity to bring forward a date other than just by a vote six weeks beforehand, because that would create surprise and difficulties and a sense of crisis. I fully accept that the terms of the clause are not fully adequate: the hon. Member for Rhondda is absolutely right about that. We do not have a complete or adequate provision on fixed-term arrangements.

Amendment 4 would remove the requirement for a two-thirds majority. I accept the argument made by many hon. Members that that is a very high threshold. I do not agree that it should be two thirds of all Members regardless of whether they are voting. If we are going to set any majority, or any weighted majority, it should comprise those who are present and voting, so I do not accept the Bill as it stands. However, I cannot just simply go along with the argument that says that there should not be any sort of weighted majority, because then we are not sure what proof we are providing against anybody abusing the numbers in this House to dissolve Parliament early. Other hon. Members have referred to the powers of the Prime Minister and the powers that are exercised through party machinery—the Whips, and so on. Leaving the calling of an early election to a simple majority that can be activated to call an election within six weeks means that huge power remains in the hands of the Prime Minister.

[Mr George Howarth]

Does my hon. Friend accept that being a Member of this place carries with it not only a lot of privileges but a lot of responsibilities, and that if we can achieve a simple majority, that would mean that more than half the Members of the House of Commons—people who have been sent here to exercise their judgment—had reached the conclusion that the time was right for a general election? I cannot for the life of me see why he finds that a difficult concept.

[Mark Durkan]

I believe in the idea of a fixed-term Parliament. I am therefore not comfortable with the idea that, yes, we have fixed-term Parliaments, but that at any time a simple majority can call an election for six weeks hence. That is what I am being asked to vote for as an alternative to what is provided for in the Bill. The Bill is not perfect, and it is badly motivated—I am as cynical as anybody else about that—but I have to be judicious and logical about what I would provide in its stead.

There is an old joke about somebody going into the two-hour dry cleaners and being told, “Come back on Tuesday.” They say, “What do you mean, come back on Tuesday? It says ‘Two-hour dry cleaners’ outside.” Then they are told, “That’s just the name of the shop.” That is exactly what we have with this Bill. People say that they want a fixed-term Parliament, but they also want a Bill that means that it will not, in effect, be fixed, because a simple vote at any time can dissolve it—and who is going to be moving those votes and pulling the strings of the Whips behind the scenes? We must remember that at any time, it will be possible for people to force an election by using a simple majority to force through a vote of no confidence in the Government. If there is not a vote of confidence in an alternative Government within 14 days, there will be an election. If people want the means to force an election, that route exists.

However, it is fair and reasonable also to give the House the power to change the date of an election for reasons that are not particularly partisan, that are mature, responsible and well thought through and that can be justified in light of existing circumstances and forthcoming events. The House should be able to say, “We have a fixed-term Parliament, but we are giving all sides ample notice that we will be moving the date.” That would not be a matter of artifice or brinkmanship. If the House is being offered such a responsible, mature power that it could use with responsibility aforethought, I find it bizarre that Members are trying to twist and turn to find reasons not to take it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

There are several other groups of amendments, and we can expand on these matters further in due course. I shall go only as far as I need to in discussing this group, rather than trying to accelerate the debate. I want to deal briefly with the timetable. I do not think that the Bill has been rushed in any way. It was published in July, it had its Second Reading in September, and the first day of its Committee stage did not start until November. We have another day in Committee today, and the House passed a programme motion earlier that gives us an extra day in Committee on Thursday. I do not think that we are rushing ahead with this. No knives were included in the programme motion, and we are taking the debate at the proper pace that the Committee requires.

[Mr George Howarth]

I accept what the Minister says about the timetable for the Committee stage on the Floor of the House. A bigger issue, however, is that there was no time for proper pre-legislative scrutiny before the Bill was published and debated. Such scrutiny would have made many of these issues less contentious, or at least it would have had the potential to do so.

[Mr Harper]

I do not pretend that we published a draft Bill. We did not, but we have not rushed ahead. We published the Bill in July and it is now November and we are on our second day of Committee. That is hardly rushing through at a tremendous pace. We have not overly programmed either; we have had no knives and only today we have added extra time for the Bill. I do not accept at all that we have been rushing on.