Oral Answers to Questions
Graham Allen Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Harper
I very much agree with my hon. Friend. We made it very clear in our proposals that we are interested in reducing the vulnerability of our electoral register to fraud and in ensuring its accuracy. We are also interested in ensuring that it is as easy as possible for anyone who is eligible to vote to get on the register. To that end, we are taking part in some data-matching pilots to improve that situation.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
Does the Minister accept that not only registration but counting the votes properly is important? Is he aware that in most constituencies there are a handful of spoilt papers, whereas in mayoral elections there are sometimes more than 1,000? On two occasions at least, the number of spoilt papers has been larger than the majority of the election winner. Will he take that up with the Electoral Commission?
Mr Harper
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who chairs the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, which will look at our individual elector registration proposals and carry out pre-legislative scrutiny. He has raised that question with me before, and I can confirm that I will ask officials to look into that matter. I will come back to him and the House in due course.
The Solicitor-General
With the greatest respect, I think that if the hon. Lady had thought about it a little more, she would understand that I am not going to give a running commentary either on the police investigations or on the likely consequences of any police investigations. She may rest assured that investigations will continue, and they will continue to follow the evidence wherever it may be—and if the evidence warrants prosecutions, they will be brought. That is work that we need to do in future; it is not something that I need to make announcements about here in the absence of any direct or relevant information immediately to hand.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
9. What steps he is taking to ensure transparency in the arrangements for the provision of legal advice to the Cabinet on a declaration of war.
The Solicitor-General
The hon. Gentleman’s Political and Constitutional Reform Committee reported in May on Parliament’s role in conflict decisions, and the Government will respond to his report shortly. The Foreign Secretary told the House on 21 March in the Libya debate that the Cabinet had the Attorney-General’s advice before it when the decision was made to take action in Libya. A Government note on the legal basis was placed in the Library that day, and was available to right hon. and hon. Members for that debate.
Mr Allen
The Solicitor-General knows better than most of us that there is a separation of powers, at least theoretically, in our constitution, and that the problems that we had over legal advice in relation to the Iraq war centred on the legal advice given to the Government by their own Attorney-General. Will he also take into account that Parliament has no right whatever to consult and get its own legal advice? Will he discuss with the House authorities putting that right, so that on future occasions when there is a conflict, Members can get their own advice rather than relying on trying to wheedle the Attorney-General’s advice out of Government?
The Solicitor-General
It is not for me to stop Members of Parliament getting whatever advice they think it appropriate to have, but the decision that has to be considered and accounted for to Parliament is that of the Prime Minister and the Government. That can be debated here, irrespective of one’s access to legal advice.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973
Graham Allen Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
It is an honour to follow the Chairman of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), and the Vice-Chairman, the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard), both of whom I am pleased to serve with on the Committee. We support the Government on the actions they have taken in Libya, which are an appropriate response to the situation. It is often said that for evil to flourish all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing, but doing nothing was not an option for the Government and the international community in this case. In examining the decision that has been taken and the motion we are being asked to support this evening, I feel there are clear differences between the decision we are taking and previous decisions that we have been asked to take. I speak as someone who has consistently supported Governments in the past in the difficult decisions they have had to take about going to war.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
May I correct the hon. Gentleman? This House is not taking any decisions: the Government have already taken a decision and have graciously allowed us a debate today. Does he agree that if we are to ensure that we stay properly informed, which the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition have both talked about, we need to resolve the question of the House’s rights in respect of when this country goes to war? As we are the elected Chamber there ought to be something in our Standing Orders or in the Cabinet manual or some other place that gives the Chamber the right to be consulted before or after an action takes place.
Mr Donaldson
I was present on Friday when the Prime Minister made his statement to the House. We had a lengthy discussion at that stage and Members had an opportunity to put their views before we went into the conflict in Libya. I believe that the commitment of the Government in allowing us this debate takes us a further step along that road, and the Prime Minister has given a commitment to keep the House informed of further developments, so at least there are those indications that the Government are taking the House and the views expressed in it seriously.
I congratulate the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—the diplomatic service was mentioned earlier—on the excellent work done in building the international coalition. Again, that is a mark of the lessons that we have learned from the past. The Government have demonstrated a willingness to learn those lessons, and that is perhaps why there is broader consensus today, not just in this House, but in the nation, on the actions that the Government are taking, and we welcome that.
Right hon. and hon. Members have asked: what is the endgame? What will we regard as success? I accept entirely the position, articulated by the Prime Minister, that we do not know what the outcome will be. At the weekend, I had the joy of watching that excellent film, “The King’s Speech”. When Chamberlain announced that Britain was at war with Germany, it struck me that it was a recognition that appeasement had not worked, but no one at that time knew the outcome of the decision to go to war. Very often, that is the case with war: one simply does not know what the outcome will be.
Leadership is about taking decisions that have an element of risk attached and where there is an element of uncertainty about the outcome, but at least in this instance, given the broad international support, there is a prospect of ensuring that we minimise the loss of life in Libya. We have seen ample evidence of that already in Benghazi and other places, where people really were facing a very dangerous situation. We welcome the fact that intervention has already had success, in so far as it has halted Gaddafi in his tracks and preserved human life. What success will look like beyond that remains to be seen. It is for the people of Libya to determine their future, obviously with international assistance and support.
That brings me to my second point, which touches on the comments that the Vice-Chairman of the Defence Committee made about our capacity to do this kind of thing in future. In the strategic defence and security review and the national security strategy, we talk about the need to develop and strengthen our involvement in conflict prevention and resolution. If our armed forces are to be smaller in future, greater effort and resource needs to be put into preventing such conflicts in future, because our involvement in international affairs is often marked by the need to intervene to prevent human tragedy when conflict is well under way. It is right that we do that, but we also need to look to a future where conflict prevention is given greater priority in what the Government seek to do.
Forgive me if this sounds parochial—it is not—but the Prime Minister referred to the involvement of Colonel Gaddafi in supporting international terrorism. We know what Colonel Gaddafi is capable of; he has made it clear that if he remains in power—that is a possible outcome—he will seek retribution against those who acted against him. We in this country know what that can look like. We know what it looked like in Warrington, Manchester, Canary Wharf, Bishopsgate, Enniskillen and Warrenpoint, and on the Shankill road in Belfast, where the weaponry that Gaddafi supplied to terrorists was used to bring to an end the innocent lives of British citizens. We know what the man is capable of doing, not just to his people but to others.
Looking towards outcomes, I welcome the establishment of the dedicated team in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I know that the Foreign Secretary has been supportive of its work. If there is regime change, and Gaddafi is removed by his people, I hope that we will pursue a settlement on behalf of victims in the United Kingdom who suffered as a result of Gaddafi’s state-sponsored terrorism. If we are to send our armed forces halfway across the world to protect the lives of people in Libya, the least that we can expect is that any new Libyan Government will honour the obligations on the people of Libya to recognise the suffering of innocent civilians in this country as a result of what Gaddafi and his surrogates did here, and to support the efforts of the victims to secure a settlement that recognises their suffering.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I am speaking on behalf of my own party and of the Scottish National party. Unlike the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson), I have been known in the past for not supporting military action. The Government have taken the right course of action in seeking a mandate from the United Nations. They have secured that mandate, and what is happening is within that mandate, and therefore lawful. I am quite comfortable with that aspect of things, and I acknowledge that a lot of hard work has been done by the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister.
It would be easy to say that it would have been better to hold a debate before taking action, but it was worth taking that action to avoid the slaughter of tens of thousands of people in Benghazi, so I have no problems with that either. Resolution 1973 authorises action to enforce the no-fly zone which, as we heard, is operational, so I take it that there will be a scaling back of aerial bombing by the allied forces for the time being unless and until it is necessary. If, for example, tanks move in against Benghazi, that is a different matter altogether. I am pleased that the no-fly zone is in place and, thus far, it appears to be working.
I would, however, pose the following questions about resolution 1973. Does full compliance with it inevitably require the removal of Colonel Gaddafi? If not, will the Government be satisfied with his remaining in power in some parts of Libya in future? We are concerned that the wording of the resolution, which appears to be quite clear, may become clouded, and we are concerned that the whole matter could be a smokescreen or shorthand for regime change, which would be unlawful under international law, but which became the main war aim of Messrs Blair and Bush, even publicly midway through the Iraq conflict.
This is a different scenario. No one wants to see a long, drawn-out engagement in Libya, so we need to hear from Ministers that there will not be mission creep, and that we are not sliding into another awful Iraq-style scenario. What are the Government’s war aims? When will they be able to say that the job is done? How and when will we know that? I appreciate the fact that the Prime Minister will keep us updated, but we are concerned that the resolution might be deliberately interpreted to meet the aims of western allies, rather than being used for purely humanitarian aims. Questions have already been asked about the consistency of messages from the UK. Sir David Richards, the Chief of the Defence Staff, said that Gaddafi is not a target, and that targeting him would be outside the remit of resolution 1973 and therefore unlawful. However, that directly contradicts what the Defence Secretary said at the weekend, so we need clarity.
What efforts have been made to marshal the humanitarian aid and assistance that will be required as soon as the conflict subsides. One of the awful lessons of Iraq was the absence of forward planning on humanitarian aid and reconstruction, so I should like to press the Foreign Secretary on that. Will the Government confirm that full diplomatic efforts are being made in parallel with any other action, as that is vital? The Arab League has reconsidered its position after its statement a day or two ago in which it opined that the action taken was beyond the remit of resolution 1973. Given its reiteration of support today, it is vital that Arab League countries are at the forefront of these actions and decisions—[Interruption.] No, they are not, which is why I am making the point. If they are not, Gaddafi will claim a propaganda coup, and allege that the allied western powers are in it for their own gain once more.
Mr Allen
Is not the right hon. Gentleman deeply concerned that in this exercise western forces are deployed in Libya, yet other than a promise from Qatar, not a single Arab state is deploying troops on the ground, in the air or on the sea to support that action? Does that not lead him to have very deep concerns about the position that he has just expressed?
Mr Llwyd
The hon. Gentleman makes my point. I am trying to be fairly succinct as we have only a few minutes, but he is right. That is of great concern. One hopes the Arab League will shortly convert its support into something more tangible; otherwise it will be a propaganda coup for Gaddafi and his type. That is a vital point.
I hope that shortly we will be there merely as peacemakers. I do not want to see Colonel Gaddafi in any form of control, but if he is to be removed, it must be by his own people, not by western firepower and intervention. The Arab spring has so far shown peaceful success in Tunisia and Egypt. Egypt’s new constitution received 77% support yesterday. However, other protests in Bahrain and Yemen have met with significant violence, including Saudi troops breaching Bahrain’s sovereignty. I share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who made the point about arms sales, but I dare say that is a debate for another day.
Suffice it to say that within the strict remit of the resolution, we in Plaid Cymru and our friends in the Scottish National party are prepared to stand by and support today’s motion. We hope there will be no mission creep and no striding beyond the strict wording of the resolution. I echo what has been said by others: it is not an easy task. It will be difficult for the Prime Minister and the Government, but in that task I wish him and the Government well.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I welcome the debate today. It is important that Parliament plays a key role in deciding whether this country is involved in wars. I endorse the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) made in an intervention about war-making powers. The House has a right to ask the Government many questions about the enterprise on which we are embarked and where it will lead. We should not be fooled by newspapers telling us, in a gung-ho and frankly offensive way in the case of The Sun and the News of the World, that the public are behind this. I am far from convinced of that. The public are concerned about public expenditure and the money that has been spent on the armed forces for the enterprise, and they are very worried about where it leads because they have been through the miserable experience of Iraq and they also have deep concerns about Afghanistan. It is therefore appropriate in today’s debate to have a serious discussion about where the action will lead.
An opinion poll in Metro this morning—I do not know how scientific that is—suggested that 58% of those questioned were against British involvement in Libya. Although I do not know how accurate that is, many people are very worried about the action. We must ask questions about the troops that we have committed through the Air Force. How long will they be there? What command structure are they currently under? That is far from clear. Several air forces are involved, and it is not clear who is co-ordinating them, who is in charge or who decides what targets to bomb at what stage. That is enormously worrying.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) asked several questions about cluster bombs and depleted uranium. Cluster bombs are illegal. Children are still dying in Iraq and Afghanistan because of the use of cluster bombs in the past. Depleted uranium was used in the Gulf war in 1991 and that has led to a high level of cancers in southern Iraq. I hope that no other forces are using depleted uranium weapons, because of the long-term effects.
What is the mission all about? Only three weeks ago, we were training Libyan forces and selling arms to Libya. British companies were happily trading with Libya and British universities were happily accepting vast sums of money from Libya until a few weeks ago. It is an awfully short time in our relations with Libya in which to go from hero to zero. The rest of the world may be concerned about that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) intervened on the Prime Minister to ask about the endgame. One hopes that there will be an urgent ceasefire and some kind of political settlement in Libya, and that Libya’s independence as a state will be preserved. However, there is another scenario: a client state in the east around Benghazi; and a pariah state in the west around Tripoli, led by Gaddafi, and a source of constant conflict, disturbance and danger in the region. That is eminently possible, with oil companies trying to get their hands on the huge resources that are there.
Mr Allen
Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am about the composition of what is currently called “the rebel force”, which is a catch-all for anti-Gaddafi forces? Many of us could support that as a concept, but is my hon. Friend a little worried that we could end up with something even worse than the current regime? Libya is not a repressed democracy. We have not spent the past 30 years building up a democratic base there. It will not be Nick and Dave who take over, but unknown people. We are not sure about the endgame and we should be careful what we wish for.
Jeremy Corbyn
My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. I do not know the politics, aims, ambitions or anything else of the people in Benghazi any more than I suspect he does. We should be cautious about going to war on behalf of a group of people whom we do not know or understand and of whose aims we are not aware. Many were Ministers in the Gaddafi Government, again, only three weeks ago. It is a very short time.
There is a danger that we do nothing about Bahrain because of close economic and military involvement, despite the US fifth fleet being there. There is a danger that we say nothing about Saudi Arabia because of the vast arms market there. The former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, felt that Saudi Arabia was so important that he stopped the Serious Fraud Office investigation into the al-Yamamah arms contract. In Yemen and Oman, people are dying. They thirst for exactly the same thing. I was at a conference this morning of Bahraini opposition groups who made strong points. They said that they were not campaigning about human rights in Bahrain yesterday, but last year, the year before, the year before that and so on. Indeed, I first met Bahraini opposition groups who were concerned about the overwhelming power of the king in 1986 at a UN human rights conference in Copenhagen.
John McDonnell
May I refer to those points to which the Prime Minister referred? He said that he would support the sentiments of the amendment, particularly in respect of ensuring that we keep civilians out of harm’s way. When I asked him about depleted uranium, he assured me that we do not use it, but we have used it consistently over time, and it has caused all sorts of harm to people in the middle east. This country, along with France, objected to the international ban on the use of such weapons, but I hope that the Prime Minister’s statement today means that we will now support the ban.
The Prime Minister said that he supports what we say about the need for a middle east conference. We need to engage to try to secure peace and stability and to promote democracy in the region. My view is that we need to do all we can to demonstrate our commitment to peace. The military action has already caused deaths. We do not know whether they are civilians, but the reports from Tripoli are that they are not dividing people from Gaddafi, but actually consolidating his support. The sight of the same countries that invaded Iraq killing Arabs again is of immense value to Gaddafi in his argument that this is another crusader invasion.
We have heard already that the Arab League is falling apart, with different statements coming out in different languages to hide the dissent. The UN is also dividing, with Russia and China, as we speak, urging that military action cease. They are not abstaining, but are convening the Security Council to try to end the action. NATO itself is displaying divisions as well. We have also heard statements from Turkey refusing to take on a longer term role. I have to say that statements in the House and by Ministers are increasingly confusing about the objectives of the military action. The UN resolution does not refer to regime change, but ministerial statement after ministerial statement clearly lead to that conclusion. Although the resolution states that there will not be a troop invasion or occupation, we now know that there is the potential for special forces and boots on the ground. That is all playing into Gaddafi’s hands by calling up images of a foreign invasion.
The charges of hypocrisy cannot go away. There is the lack of action in Yemen, Bahrain and Oman. I am talking not about physical action, which I would oppose anyway, but about the mealy-mouthed ministerial statements. There has been no threat to use the international courts against these killer regimes or to seize their assets, and there has been no threat even of diplomatic isolation. Neither has it helped that the images are still fresh in people’s minds in the middle east of our Prime Minister’s recent tour of the region to sell arms to these barbaric regimes. Finally, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North has mentioned the hypocrisy of refusing a no-fly zone when Gaza was invaded. We now face the prospect of a long-haul engagement in military action in Libya.
We risk being dragged into on-the-ground bloody combat, followed by a counter-insurgency struggle and then vulnerability to a lengthy terrorist campaign. It will all threaten the peace and stability of the region and have consequences for our own people and the global economy. That is why the message today from the Chamber should be that we seek peace, that we want to ensure the safety of civilians and that our concern is for the peace of the region and the promotion of democracy overall. I urge the Government to take up the offer of mediation from the ALBA countries. I urge the Chamber to send the message that we strive in every way possible to bring all parties together to seek peace. In that way, we might yet have the opportunity to restore some credibility to the role of this country in the middle east. I do not believe that that will be done as a result of the bombs and missiles now hurtling down on the Libyan people and causing death and destruction.
Mr Allen
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Will you speak to Mr Speaker to ensure that the rights of the House are properly represented, so that in future, when a motion is put down by the Government, who are meant to be being held to account by the House, sufficient time is allowed for amendments to be organised and tabled by people in the House of a different view? We all have reservations. No one has spoken tonight and said that they are 100% certain about what we are doing. If we allow other voices and amendments, and if we allow colleagues to accumulate sufficient signatures, would it not be in order to have a debate with amendments that could be voted on and which could present a different point of view in the House from the choice we are presented with tonight?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
There was an amendment on the Order Paper, but it was not selected by Mr Speaker. However, the hon. Gentleman’s comments will be made known to him.
Mr Hague
I will mention the hon. Gentleman in a moment, so he can intervene then, but I am trying in a very short time to answer the questions that have been asked. How many extra tens of thousands of people would now be streaming to the borders? We should be proud that our forces were able to respond in time. One of the reasons—the main reason—why people have heard of forces from only the United States, France and the United Kingdom going into action is that they are among the few countries in the world with the capability to act so quickly. It is not necessarily that other countries are unwilling; their capability is not as great.
The reason why we were able to act in that way and win such support at the United Nations is that the support—the call—of the Arab League for a no-fly zone and the protection of the people of Libya was unprecedented. That has had an enormous impact. The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) gave the other side of the argument, and asked why Britain should get involved. Given the background—we are one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, one of only three of those members who believed that it was necessary to take action, and one of the few countries with the military capability to do something about the situation—if we had not got involved in the resolution and the action, then such a resolution and such action would probably not have happened at all. That is our responsibility in the United Kingdom, as well as our clear national interest. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, it is not in our national interest for a dangerous dictator with a record of violent acts beyond his own country to run a pariah state on the very edge of the European Union.
Mr Hague
I will not. I give way hundreds of times in other debates, but I am trying to answer the points made today.
It is not in our interests for Egypt and Tunisia to be destabilised. Of course, the action that we have taken is not without risks and dangers to our armed forces and the people we are trying to help, and many hon. Members have highlighted the risks involved, but as the Leader of the Opposition said in a powerful speech, the argument that we do not know the sequence of events to come is not an argument for inaction. As was said by the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd), who was trying to intervene, just because we have made mistakes in the past, it does not mean that we should not try to do something right; I absolutely agree with him.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) made a memorable and powerful speech, and I would love to hear the 60-minute version, not the six-minute version. He reminded us that our mission is to protect human beings, and that the temptation to dig ever deeper in all such situations must be resisted. We are conscious of that in the Government. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) pointed out, we are seeking to implement the United Nations resolution so that the people of Libya can determine their own future. We will make every effort to maintain and consult our broad coalition, closely consulting the Arab League and working with our NATO partners, including Turkey, as several hon. Members have asked us to do.
Some Members asked what the Arab League intended to say. I spoke to Mr Amr Moussa yesterday afternoon—the Prime Minister spoke to him today—and he made it clear to me that he did not mean to criticise the mission, and he supports the UN resolution and its enforcement. Others have asked if our approach is part of a wider approach to the region and a commitment to the middle east peace process; it certainly is. They asked whether we will make conflict prevention central to our policy; yes, of course we do, as we have shown recently in Sudan. They asked whether we will plan for different scenarios, including humanitarian assistance when it is necessary; yes, we certainly are doing so.
Some of my hon. Friends have asked whether this decision showed that an aircraft carrier should have been retained, but I can tell them that the Tornado aircraft that are most suited of all to perform these missions could not have been flown from an aircraft carrier. Other hon. Members have asked whether the costs will be met from the reserve, and I can tell them that they will. We have also been asked to look carefully at all legal advice on the meaning of the arms embargo of paragraph 4 of the resolution, and of course we are doing so.
In the case of Libya, the desire to be rid of a decaying dictatorship has run up against a regime that has shown itself to be one of the most ruthless, unprincipled and savage. The Arab world and the western world care about the civilians of Libya, but their Government do not. We are determined to stop violence, bloodshed and suffering—the very things that the Gaddafi regime is happy to unleash. When the Prime Minister said in the House three weeks ago that we should not just stand by if Colonel Gaddafi used military force against his own people, he was seen by many as being too bold. But he meant what he said, and we mean to stand by his words just as we are standing by the people of Libya.
With our allies and partners, we have carried through the United Nations Security Council a resolution that is clear, unequivocal and comprehensive, and that leaves the legality of what we are now doing not in the slightest doubt. We have acted at the behest of the Arab League, and are joined by Arab nations. We have taken every care to ensure that doubts about lawfulness and regional support, such as those that have dogged earlier decisions, do not apply in this case. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) said, we are right to act but right not to act alone.
This is not the west imposing its views on Libya; it is the world saying that the people of Libya should be allowed to express their views without their Government setting out to slaughter them. We are not trying to choose the future Government of Libya. That is a matter for Libyans, who must find their own solution to the mis-government that they have been subjected to, but this resolution, and our enforcement of it, gives them their only chance of being allowed to do so. This is not a legal fudge or a questionable interpretation of international law; it is the rigorous application of international law. Our actions are all the stronger for the breadth and determination of the international coalition, but they are also stronger for the breadth and determination of this House, which we have seen today.
The brave members of our armed forces who have patrolled the skies above Benghazi today or flown through the night to destroy the air defences of a regime that used air power against its own citizens can know that they do so armed not only with the weaponry that they are so well trained to deploy but with every advantage of knowing that what they do is legally warranted, morally necessary, internationally supported and, I hope, democratically agreed through a vote of this House of Commons. They can have the satisfaction of knowing that, in precipitating the retreat of Gaddafi’s forces from Benghazi, they have already averted a catastrophe and a new outpouring of human misery. In pressing our case at the United Nations, in insisting that what we do must be legal, in taking extreme care to protect civilians and in acting with a speed and precision that few armed forces on Earth can rival, this country is doing what it said it would do, doing what is absolutely right and joining in giving a lead to the world, and it should enjoy the united support of the House tonight.
Question put.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (Programme) (No. 2)
Graham Allen Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
The Minister said some fine words about the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. We tried hard, and members from both sides of the House worked incredibly hard, to get before the House the report that is in the Vote Office, and which I personally sent to every Member of Parliament on Friday by e-mail so that they could be informed about some of the broader issues before the debate got under way.
We are complaining about the number of days on the Floor of the House, but that number exceeds the number of days that the Select Committee was given to look at this issue in detail. There is a problem with that. People may say, “Well, we can make it good on the Floor of the House.” The Floor of the House is a hothouse, and people can be controversial and take sides. If we allow effective pre-legislative scrutiny by a Select Committee made up of members of all shades of opinion, we end up with a view, and some research done on behalf of all Members of the House that, I hope, carries some weight. If the Government take away that weight and that scrutiny, if they deny Members whom the House asked to undertake that job the time to do it effectively, they delegitimise the Bill.
Other people have said that if we cannot have a proper debate in the House of Commons, the debate goes to the other place. As a House of Commons person and a parliamentarian, I do not want to see that. It is essential that the House be allowed to debate whatever issue to the fullest extent. When the issue is one that strikes at the very heart of our democracy, that raises issues of national concern, whether it is the number of Members of Parliament, the boundaries, the question on the referendum paper or our electoral system, surely it is even more necessary that this House should have the proper processes to do its job properly.
We are discussing a programme motion before we get stuck into the Committee stage on the Floor of the House. Just as the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said, perhaps we need to look again very soon at the idea of the business Committee. We also need to look again at timetabling sensible scrutiny at the beginning of the legislative process, not halfway through it, as we are about to go into battle on particular clauses and fight each other and have debates and votes. I would ask the Minister to learn some lessons on this Bill, which are applicable to future democratic Bills in the pipeline. If he does not, he places us all in the difficulty that we are sending to the other place Bills that may be faulty, are not legitimate and have not had the proper debate that they deserve. Then, we should not complain if we reap the whirlwind of that decision. It lies in the hands of this House and this Chamber.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Graham Allen Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
As I have said, it is not only our view in the Government; it is also the view of a number of very distinguished constitutional experts who gave evidence to the Committee on this very point just a short while ago. As I was seeking to point out, we have looked at the court case on the Hunting Act 2005 specifically cited in the memorandum from the Clerk, and found that it arrives at exactly the opposite conclusion.
Mr Allen
In the very limited time that we had to look at this matter, the Clerk was the only person to raise this question, and the academics who have been referred to—Professor Hazell, Professor Blackburn and others—completely disagreed with the view put forward by the Clerk. This is simply a question of whether the power exists in statute law or in Standing Orders. I should like to quote from the Committee’s report, in which we said:
“It would be a pity if the Executive gave up the power to call an election at a time of its own choosing only for the legislature to hand it back by a simple suspension of Standing Orders to that same end.”
In other words, we all know that the Standing Orders of the House can be suspended at any moment on the whim of the Executive. It would be a shame, were the Executive finally to give up that power, for us simply to hand it back again.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am grateful for that clarification. I strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman, and we agree with the Committee’s conclusions on this point. Given the constitutional significance of the Bill, which has been underlined by many Members during the debate, it would be inappropriate for those significant constitutional provisions to be translated into Standing Orders. They need to find their way into primary legislation, and into law.
In the event of an early Dissolution, and an early general election, the new Parliament will run until the first Thursday in May in the fifth year of its existence, unless, of course, it too is subject to early Dissolution. Questions have been asked about whether the new Parliament should run for the full time, or whether its life should be limited to whatever period its predecessor had left on the clock. Our view is that resetting that clock is a more sensible proposition. That is the arrangement that will be most natural to voters; people do not expect to elect a Parliament knowing that it will last only a short time. When they hand a Government a majority, they are giving them a mandate to govern for up to five years.
Mr Straw
We need to do it in the next couple of years, but we do not need to do it now. If the Leader of the House were true to his word, he would at least have allowed for the 12 weeks’ pre-legislative scrutiny that his Government promised would normally take place for Bills.
Mr Allen
Does my right hon. Friend agree that were the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee to have been given 12 weeks—I think that we have done an incredible job in two days, producing this report—many of the wrinkles that everyone concedes are in the Bill could have been smoked out? We could have heard from a lot of expert witnesses and we would have proposed ways in which a principle that appears to have the support of the whole House could have found consensus, as opposed to becoming a cause for bitterness and division.
Mr Straw
I accept that entirely. Constitutional legislation is always complicated and we should always seek consensus on it. I have to say—I believe Members know this—that I can think of plenty of occasions when I brought forward constitutional legislation and then had to take it away again. With the single, terrible exception of the European Parliamentary Elections Bill—for which I have already abjectly apologised as it was a dreadful piece of legislation—I have always both provided sufficient time and quite often changed proposed legislation addressing this complicated territory in the light of what was said in this House or the other place in Committee and the Chamber.
To consider why we have ended up in this situation, we have to return to a point made by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) in an intervention on the Deputy Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman echoed a comment made last week by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who said of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill that people might have more respect for the Government if they admitted that it was about party advantage. There would have been greater respect for the Government over the timing and abject drafting of the Bill before us if the Deputy Prime Minister had said, “Yes, we brought this forward—and the Prime Minister has stood on his head on this—because we did a deal for a variety of reasons which I shall explain. That is the price the Prime Minister paid for this bit of the deal, and we are rushing it through for internal reasons.” The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex was absolutely right to say—he can correct me if I get a single preposition in the wrong place—that the Bill smacks of gerrymandering the constitution in favour of the coalition, which is what I heard him say, and that it was legislation on the hoof. That is true. The Deputy Prime Minister should have taken his time and invited the other parties into discussion, sought the advice of the Liaison Committee and others, and come forward with a much better proposition.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
May I tell the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) that I have witnessed many maiden speeches, but his was up there among the best? I am sure that the House will hear much more from him in the coming years, and I look forward to his contributions. His maiden speech was certainly gracious and well constructed, and he made it with very little reference to notes. It was very good, and we all look forward to hearing more from him.
Characteristically, the Deputy Prime Minister stayed for the opening speeches, then cleared off. He described the measure as modest in size. Well, at five clauses, it is indeed modest. He managed to demonstrate that, even though it is only five clauses long, he is not totally familiar with the content of his own Bill. In fact, it is not just modest in size but squalid in intent.
Constitutional reform often has the effect of inducing an outbreak of navel gazing in the House, so I am usually reluctant to take part in these debates. That said, I genuinely believe both that the Bill is wrong in principle and that its details have not been properly tested or subjected to wider scrutiny. There was legislative scrutiny in the second report this Session by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee—I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) will give his views to the House—but it can hardly be said that that report, although helpful, gave the proposals a ringing endorsement. Quite the opposite, in fact. In its conclusion on page 8, while not ruling out the principle of fixed-term Parliaments, the Committee expressed its position:
“If the coalition wants five years in which to govern, it has the legal right to do so, for as long as it can command the confidence of the House. But we are not persuaded that current circumstances are a sensible basis on which to commit future governments to five-year terms.”
Hear, hear.
It is not just the Select Committee that has expressed concern. Indirectly, in business questions last Thursday, the Leader of the House did so, when he said, in answer to a question from me:
“However, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman understands that with a new Government, it is not possible, if one is to make progress, to put everything in draft, particularly when commitments have been made to do certain things by a certain time. Those political imperatives sometimes”—
The House should note the words, “political imperatives”—
“override the ambition that both he and I have to subject all Bills to draft scrutiny.”—[Official Report, 9 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 466.]
There we have it. The reason why the Committee chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North was not given longer and why there was not a wider consultation is that the coalition Government have decided—it would appear, by the way, without a great deal of support from some parts of the Government—that they need to deliver the measure for political reasons.
Mr Allen
It is possible, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) suggested, to devise a means by which pre-legislative scrutiny could take place. Even with Second Reading being completed today, it would be possible to commit the Bill either to the Select Committee or to a Special Standing Committee, so that the 12 week-period that the Government regard as appropriate is fulfilled. I leave that in the air, in the forlorn hope that even at this point the Minister may take it as a suggestion.
Mr Howarth
My hon. Friend makes a useful suggestion, and doubtless he will expand on it if he succeeds in catching your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. Issues of principle are involved, as well as of detail, and that is what I intend to try to deal with.
Before dealing with the Bill’s provisions, I want to say a word about the trust that was placed in our hands by our constituents at the general election. I hope that that does not sound too pious, but it is important that we discuss these principles when we deal with measures of this kind. Regardless of our party labels, we have been entrusted by our constituents with the ability to exercise judgment as representatives of our constituencies. That may appear trite, but it is important that we do not lose sight of it. Let me qualify the point, however, as I am not so naive as to assume that the 31,000 people who voted for me in Knowsley in the general election did so wholly or even mainly on the basis that I was the best person for the job.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
First, I congratulate the members of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, many of whom are here tonight, on performing a brilliant job of which I hope the House is very proud. They had a mere two or three days in which to produce for the House a first-class report; I hope that colleagues will take the chance to look at it. If it does not cover all the answers, it none the less raises most of the key questions, which can be resolved through the passage of this Bill. I thank all those Members who worked so hard on pulling the document together. I took the liberty of e-mailing it to every Member of the House within one minute of its publication on Friday morning, in the hope that those who were not out campaigning and knocking on doors at the weekend would have a chance at least to look at it and inform themselves ahead of the debate. We did the best we could, but it is still not good enough in respect of the procedures of the House. We should expect our Select Committees to have a careful, long, detailed look at the legislation that is proposed by the Government and that the House is expected to pass. We can do that by having proper pre-legislative scrutiny.
The Bill flies in the face of effective pre-legislative scrutiny. We will do our best for the two days of Committee on the Floor of the House, but I hope very much that in future the Government will ensure that we all get adequate time to do what we are here for—to make better law. The Government-drafted law, good as it is, will always benefit from a careful, steady appraisal and from the answering of questions. That is what the parliamentary process is designed for.
Mrs McGuire
Pre-legislative scrutiny is a valuable tool for the House across a range of legislation, and constitutional change has significant ramifications for a whole other range of legislation that the House has passed over many hundreds of years. Does my hon. Friend agree that pre-legislative scrutiny should almost have been a pre-requisite before the Bill came to the House?
Mr Allen
As I would expect, my right hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. As we have heard today, many people support the principle of what the Government are saying. Why lose friends by rushing the process? Why not get better law by going steadily? I am sure that colleagues know that democratic change has been dear to my heart for many years. Above all, why not build a consensus in the House for the change once it has been gone through carefully and after everyone in the House feels that they have been able to be involved—rather than everyone in the House feeling that they have been cheated and that the process has been abusive to them as Members of Parliament? I shall return to that issue a little later.
This is a Second Reading debate, so we are talking about the big principles. The big principle is whether we should have a fixed-term Parliament. I speak personally and strongly in saying that such a Parliament is certainly needed; many of us have campaigned for one for many years. I think that it will become a steady, fixed aspect of what we do in this country. To quote the report,
“our expectation is that future Parliaments would run for their full fixed term, and that this will become an unremarkable aspect of our modern democracy.”
That is how most western democracies operate, and they take it in their stride. That is just how things are. They have a set, fixed system and do not get terribly excited for two or three years about whether there will be a general election. They know perfectly well when their legislature and Executive are going to be elected. The process is not all covered in mysticism, judicial archaeology and obscure Standing Orders; it is there for people to see, with every elector owning their democracy.
It was said that nobody writes to hon. Members about fixed-term Parliaments. People do not; but they do speak to all of us on the doorsteps about how they feel about politics. They feel that politics is not working and does not deliver for them. Our role is to take that general sentiment—albeit not expressed in favour of this or that clause in a particular Bill—that we must restore politics to people. That is one of the key principles underlying the idea of a fixed-term Parliament.
I have got form on this issue. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) talked about the 1992 Labour party decision. I was fortunate enough to have drafted that document. That was nearly 20 years ago and there has been a lot of discussion since, but the House is finally getting the chance to decide on whether the people of our country should know when the next general election is going to be. That is a really important step forward.
Mr Cash
The hon. Gentleman is doing a great job with his Committee and I congratulate it on producing such a speedy report.
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the will of Parliament can easily be subjected to the will of the Whips? On a matter of great constitutional importance, it is perfectly clear that one of the main objectives would be to use the Whip system to get whatever result the respective members of the coalition Government wanted—at the expense of the people of this country, who vote for us?
Mr Allen
Indeed. One of the small matters of dispute that I have had with the hon. Gentleman over the years has been that somehow he feels that we can recreate some golden parliamentary age. This place is owned by the Executive and the alternative Executive; the hon. Gentleman, more than anybody, should know that. If he does not understand that, he falls into the same trap as the Clerk, who talked about the
“House’s mastery of its own proceedings”.
That is a myth and a self-deception. We must confront that issue. We imagine that somehow there are 650 individuals here creating our own rules, but the rules are created by the Executive.
The Bill seeks to put into law provisions for a fixed-term Parliament, rather than putting them only in Standing Orders, which can be changed at a moment’s notice. The 10 o’clock rule is suspended on a daily basis and Standing Orders are cast aside and suspended on a regular basis. To pretend that there is an atomised Parliament with 650 Members all exercising their consciences is a self-deception out of which, I hope, hon. Members throughout the House will educate themselves. In that way, we can take back some control for the House and strengthen Parliament, and people can elect us understanding that the House of Commons—the legislature —is different from the Executive, and should have its own independence and powers.
The hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) led me down the road of the rebalancing of powers between the legislature and the Executive, and I agree with the Deputy Prime Minister that this, for once, is the Executive actually giving away a power, for whatever reason. We can make our own judgments about the reason, but I welcome the change, because it helps to rebalance the power between the Executive and the legislature. If we seize this moment, we could use it to help to strengthen this institution rather than, as the hon. Member for Stone mentioned, just following the Whips. We could use this precedent to make sure that we can build up and strengthen our Parliament.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman says that the Bill could strengthen the standing of Parliament. However, as I understand it, the Bill does not prevent the Government from putting down a motion of no confidence in themselves and therefore, if they had a majority, getting an election whenever they wanted one. That is the ineffectiveness of the drafting of the Bill.
Mr Allen
There are so many flaws in the Bill’s drafting. The Committee, on the hon. Gentleman’s behalf, has done as good a job as it can in pointing them out. I hope that all of them will be put right during the Committee stage, as they could be put right if we were to have a special Public Bill Committee or a proper pre-legislative process. However, that is currently not the case. The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, and one that should be addressed by the Government as the Bill proceeds.
The other thing about a fixed-term Parliament is predictability and continuity. Instead of permanent politics-as-entertainment, in which there is speculation about impending general elections and people feed tittle-tattle and gossip to raise or lower the political temperature, we will know that we can get on with serious business while knowing the date of the next general election and putting such considerations aside. That is something of great importance, and would lead to us as parliamentarians being able to seize greater control of what we do in this place on a number of issues, rather than being engaged, even at arm’s length, in speculation about when an election will take place.
Mr Shepherd
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and his Committee, and for the evidence that it has taken. However, what concerns me—one of the witnesses makes this point in a written statement—is that we are talking about piecemeal constitutional change. The Labour and Conservative parties are dedicated to an elected House of Lords, for instance. How does a five or four-year term—or whatever it is—fit into the broader picture for us? That is what bothers me, so to talk about a piece of piecemeal legislation—and to ask the question “Cui bono?”—is not good enough.
Mr Allen
Perfection may be the enemy of the good in this case. As parliamentarians, we are feeding on the crumbs from the table, and I guess that this is as good as we can do. The choice is not between the Bill and a big-bang written constitution that solves all the problems in one go; the Bill is what is on offer, and as supplicants in the process, we can only try to make it a better part of this piecemeal change. Unfortunately, we do not have the option of something much more fundamental; and indeed, I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman would really want that. However, perhaps he does, so I will follow his speech with interest.
The other thing about predictability and continuity is that they give Governments the chance to decide their programme and work through their Bills much more effectively. This helter-skelter “throw it into the mix” way of passing legislation debilitates Governments of all parties. Let there be proper evidence-based policy making—probably for the first time in our lifetime—so that the Government can put things to the House of Commons that are almost fully formed, rather than throwing them in and saying, “We’ll hope to amend them as they go through this House and the second Chamber.” Instead of saying, “Let’s botch a few things and get hundreds of amendments down to try and get the Bill into shape,” how about having proper, considered, evidence-based policy making from the Government, which would then be immensely strengthened by proper scrutiny by the House? Who loses in that process?
Some might say, “It’s going to delay things,” but we did this. Indeed, a classic example from when Labour was in power was criminal justice Bills. We popped them out virtually once a year because we had not got it right the first time, but we also had to get something before the House and show that we were fighting crime. I think we can all do better than that. If we used the process that is readily available to us to consider legislation carefully, the Government would amaze themselves at the Bills they could produce for the House and the House would amaze itself at the contribution it could make by having proper scrutiny of how legislation develops.
We have proposed, on an all-party basis, that there should be 12 weeks of pre-legislative scrutiny. To his great credit, the Leader of the House has written to the Liaison Committee saying that Bills should normally have a 12-week evidence-taking pre-legislative scrutiny period. If we can get the so-called new politics to deliver on that, so that every Bill goes through that process, we will produce much better law. However, if we just ram things through the House of Commons, it will be business as usual and legislation will be flawed. Those who throw in the bogey of the courts coming and lurking in the corridors of the House of Commons will find their wish fulfilled, because there may indeed be flaws in the legislation. I hope we will iron out all those wrinkles this week and in the days on the Floor of the House, but if we are not careful and if we do not have the right level of scrutiny, we may get what we wish for.
Mrs McGuire
Given the adversarial nature of our legislative process, does my hon. Friend agree that some of the issues to which he has alluded will be difficult to iron out in the passage of this legislation and that pre-legislative scrutiny would have led not only to a far better conclusion, but to one that would have gathered a consensus across the House?
Mr Allen
It is not always possible to achieve a consensus, but technical issues—whether the courts might be involved; whether the proposal might be implemented better through Standing Orders or in statute; the number of days needed after a Government have lost the confidence of the House—are the sorts of things that can be decided to everybody’s satisfaction. That does not mean that everyone will be satisfied for or against a fixed-term Parliament, but that is the purpose of a Second Reading, and that is the purpose of the final reading in this House: to say yes or no to the key principles. What we in this House are failing to deliver is technically competent, thoroughly analysed and examined pieces of legislation. That is why we have Select Committees, Public Bill Committees and the Committee stage on the Floor of the House for democratic Bills. However, we as a House are robbing ourselves of the opportunity to do that work by asking our Select Committee to come up with a report, good as it is, in two or three days.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
I join others in congratulating the hon. Gentleman and his Committee on the work that they have done in the short time available. Can he share with the House what discussions he has had, and what explanation he has been given, about the failure to go down the route of pre-legislative scrutiny for this important piece of constitutional legislation?
Mr Allen
I will have to let the Minister answer that question in the wind-up. With the first Bill—on AV and boundaries—there was a desire for a referendum in May and a great rush to secure one. With this Bill on fixed-term Parliaments, which would benefit immensely from study—not delay, but getting it right—I have not really had a sensible explanation as to why it is being pushed through in the brief period when the House is back in September.
The Bill as a concept—and so without a Second Reading—could have been discussed on the Floor of the House in June or July. Without any knowledge of the Bill, we could have discussed the key principles, but it was not put before us in a way that enabled the Committee to bring sensible and serious evidence before the House. If doing things that way could become part of the process, I would be very happy, but that would really mean putting it in Standing Orders. It is no good waiting for smoke signals from Ministers or the Leader of the House; it should be the right of this House to look at legislation. That should be what we expect, not something that may be handed down with a nod and a wink.
Pete Wishart
We all very much enjoy the hon. Gentleman’s evangelical speeches on behalf of empowering the House, but there are three representatives of minority parties in the Chamber, and he will know that we do not have the same access as hon. Members in the three big parties. What is he actively doing to ensure that we are represented in all those important Committees of the House? We are not on his Committee, for example, or on the Liaison Committee, and there are so many others. Surely he could help us a bit more to get there.
Mr Allen
I do not want to go over old ground—you might pull me up, Madam Deputy Speaker—but the hon. Gentleman will know that there are a number of us, not least among the Select Committee Chairs, working away on that issue to try to find a happy resolution. Unfortunately, what was agreed at that moment was a satisfactory compromise, but not exactly what we might all have wanted in those negotiations. None the less, that is something that the House must continue to pursue.
Another advantage of the predictability and continuity of a fixed-term Parliament would be that it would give Members of Parliament and their staff, and the staff of the House, some clarity about the House’s timetable and calendar. That would bring some stability to the way in which staff are employed, for example, and to their holidays and their terms and conditions. Such provisions in the Bill would also give electoral registration officers in every locality a greater length of time to prepare than they have when a snap election is called. We have heard, in a different context, lots of stuff about people failing to register. It would be well within the compass of election registration officers to build up a registration campaign ahead of key events such as general elections, and to plan ahead for such campaigns.
We have also heard—I think it was from the Deputy Prime Minister, or perhaps from an intervener on him—about the Electoral Commission’s report, which was published today. It talks about the importance of overseas and forces voters being registered properly, and a fixed-term Parliament could broaden our democracy by making that work. At heart, however, the Bill is about restoring policy questions to our politics, and about not being so distracted by the media blood sports relating to whether we are going to have an election, in whose favour it will be and when the Prime Minister is going to go to the palace.
Finally, I want to deal with the failure to get effective scrutiny for the Bill. That failure has meant that we have not been able to look at a large number of issues that attach to a fixed-term Parliament, including the use of royal prerogative powers and the strength of the Executive over Parliament. We have not been able to study the links between what we are proposing now and fixed-term Parliaments in other areas. We have not been able to examine prerogative powers in relation to proroguing Parliament. That has been mentioned tangentially, but why do we still have these obscure, ancient rights? No one, except those who work inside the Executive, seems to know quite where they come from or how they can be exercised. These things are not in our power; they are not part of Parliament’s mastery of its own destiny.
The power to set the date for the meeting of Parliament after a general election is not in the gift of the Members who have just been elected; it is in the gift of the Government. We are not masters of our own destiny in that regard. The power also exists for the Prime Minister to go to the Palace without any authority from Parliament. We talk about things being announced on the “Today” programme, but the Prime Minister does not even need to come to the House to announce that there is to be an election. He does not even have to come here, as the leader of the main party, to claim the right to be sent by Parliament to the palace. We see smoke and mirrors on general election night; colleagues are a passing butterfly of an electoral college that night, and they are expected simply to toe the line thereafter. That is what royal prerogative powers are about; what the term really means is Executive power. All those powers remain untouched and unlooked-at, because we were not allowed to scrutinise the Bill effectively.
I will vote for the Bill tonight. In principle, we need a fixed term for our Parliaments. We should debate on the Floor of the House whether it is four years or five. We should, however, have had proper scrutiny. That would have made this a better Bill. I say with some empathy for the coalition Government that, above all, if they want to change the way in which we are governed, and the way in which our democracy works, they cannot do it by the old methods. They have to reach out, explain and educate. If they do not, those people who would otherwise be their friends and make a consensus work, and who would make the new democracy work and give Parliament the rights that it deserves, will not be with them. It is a great mistake to push through legislation, particularly legislation of this nature, without trying to bring people with them, and the most important people to bring with them in that regard are Members of this House of all parties.
Mr Harper
Yes, the Leader of the House made the point and I do not think it is different from what I have just said. These are important measures and the Government want to get on with political and constitutional reform. That is why we are moving ahead with these measures, but they will be debated on the Floor of the House and all colleagues will have the opportunity to debate them.
Mr Allen
Is not one of the advantages of having a five-year or four-year fixed-term Parliament the ability to plan the legislative timetable, and will the Minister therefore reassure Members of all parties that in future all Bills will be subject to a 12-week pre-legislative scrutiny process? [Interruption.]
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Graham Allen Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
It is a great privilege to make my first contribution as the newly elected Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. A great number of the Select Committee’s members are in the Chamber today, and I look forward to listening to their speeches later.
I would like to refer you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to the work of the Select Committee, to the evidence taken at length, to a large document to which many of the key academics and most of the important people had contributed their views, and to a widespread consultation that had taken place. I would also like to refer you to the racy and readable summary of that Select Committee report, because if parliamentarians on the Select Committee do not do their job and lay down basic, agreed and impartial facts, the debate might get partisan and a little tribal.
I would like to do those things, but I cannot do them. My Select Committee has had a grand total of two sessions to discuss and take evidence on the Bill, which is arguably the most important that the House will pass in this Session—the most far-reaching and fundamental Bill. It changes our electoral system, it changes the number of Members of Parliament, it changes the balance between the Executive and legislature—for the worse, because fewer Members will mean that a larger percentage of us will represent either the alternative Executive or the Executive themselves, making it even harder to hold the Government to account—and it changes the relationship of individual Members to their constituents.
My Select Committee has a good bunch of people on it, from different parties, who are independent-minded and who speak their minds. One thing that unites them, in the sliver of a report that we have had a chance to put before the House, is the belief that we have not been adequately consulted during discussions about the Bill.
The Leader of the House, whose statement I welcomed, said that if we were to take the House of Commons seriously, we must have proper pre-legislative scrutiny. There must be a period, before any Bill comes to the House for its Second Reading, that would allow us to say, “We have studied this Bill, and here are some of our conclusions.” The Leader of the House wrote to the Liaison Committee—which consists of all the Chairs of all the Select Committees—stating in terms that he believed that 12 weeks constituted the minimum amount of time that we should spend on each Bill before it came to the House for Second Reading, but I am afraid that he has had to eat his words.
This is not some small order or statutory instrument, but potentially the biggest Bill that the House will consider in five years, and my Committee has been given just two sessions in which to consider it. I do not regard that as the new politics. I do not regard it as involving all Members in the House. I am not making a partisan point on behalf of one party or another; I am making a point on behalf of my Committee, which believes that it is inappropriate for a Bill of such magnitude to receive such cursory attention from the House before its Second Reading.
I hope very much—and I hope that the Minister of State will take my words away with him—that it will never be possible for this to happen again, but my hopes may be forlorn. The Fixed Term Parliaments Bill will come down the tracks next Monday, and again we shall have only two sessions in which to consider it. That must strike at the heart of every Member of Parliament. It must cause all Members to ask themselves what they really feel is their role in this place. Of course they must support their Government or their Opposition, but they must ask themselves whether this is the way in which we want to pursue our politics over the next five years. I ask them please to find it within themselves to say, “We can do better.”
Let me make a more personal observation about the boundaries provisions. As other Members have already pointed out, the population in our constituencies has risen by 25% since 1950. The expectation of what we should do has massively increased the work load of Members, particularly those in deprived constituencies such as mine. If we proceed with these proposals and make no effort to change them, we shall be voting to give our constituents a poorer service, and that is not why we came here.
Oral Answers to Questions
Graham Allen Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
10. What recent proposals the Electoral Commission has made to engage people in the democratic process; and if he will make a statement.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)
The Electoral Commission informs me that its work in this area focuses on encouraging voter registration and making sure that people have the information they need to take part in elections. It believes that it is for political parties and candidates to give people a reason to turn out to vote on polling day.
Mr Allen
The last general election was the most rule-bound, hidebound, bureaucratically hamstrung election for all of us as candidates. We had to fill in more papers, swear more oaths and write more notes to the electoral registration officer than ever before. When will the Electoral Commission get back to its core role of really trying to excite people to register, and to vote and thereby participate in our democracy?
Mr Streeter
I was not sure whether the hon. Gentleman, who is greatly respected in this House, was describing the Electoral Commission or the previous Government. He will have seen a report that has just been filed by the Electoral Commission that recommends significant changes to our electoral system along the lines he suggests. We very much hope that the Government will be listening to this excellent report.
Political and Constitutional Reform
Graham Allen Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
The coalition agreement is very clear that the referendum will be decided on the basis of a simple majority. If we had thresholds for legitimacy, many Members of this House would not be here right now. It is a simple principle that a simple majority should be sufficient to pass the referendum one way or the other, and that is what we will do.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
Does the Deputy Prime Minister accept that if we are to reform our democracy, one of the most important things is that we take not only our people, but our Parliament with us? Will he therefore ensure that there is effective pre-legislative scrutiny of the two Bills that he has proposed and the Bills that are to come? Without that, he is in danger of denying the legitimacy that his proposals will depend upon.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Of course I agree that it is essential that the Bills are properly scrutinised. As the hon. Gentleman knows, given that they are constitutional Bills, every stage of the passage of the Bills will be taken on the Floor of the House, so that every hon. Member can scrutinise these important Bills and have their say in the final shape of the legislation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Graham Allen Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Maude
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but he will recollect the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury who said that there was no money left. We have to run the Government with less money than there was, and there will have to be cuts. We hope, to the maximum extent possible, that public spending can be cut without affecting jobs, but it is unreal to expect that that will be totally avoidable.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
13. Whether he has had recent discussions with third sector organisations on the financing of early intervention programmes; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)
I salute the hon. Gentleman’s pioneering work in that area, and he will know that the voluntary and community sector can be a very helpful provider of early intervention services that reduce the drivers of demand on the state. I shall be in contact with my colleagues in all relevant Departments about any future policy developments on early intervention, and about how the Office for Civil Society can contribute.
Mr Allen
I welcome the Minister to his place. Will he meet me and a Treasury Minister to discuss how we can release the bonds on the voluntary and charitable sectors so that they can raise money in the City of London in order to pursue early intervention through social investment bonds? Will he agree to meet me?
Mr Hurd
I can certainly speak for myself and agree to meet the hon. Gentleman. He will know about the interesting work on social impact bonds, which bring in private capital for investment in early intervention and involve payment by results. That will be an important part of the future.