Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Allen Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have sympathy with what my hon. Friend says. Members of the public looking at that list of private Members’ Bills will believe that those measures could still make progress, but we know that, given where we are in the Session, that is not now possible. There is a lot that is good in the report, and I can give him an assurance that we will respond carefully and thoughtfully to it. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), who chairs the Procedure Committee, for the excellent work that he and his team have done on the report. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) that it will get a proper response.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

7. If he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of departmental Question Times in holding the Government to account.

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

Departmental Question Times are a valuable opportunity for Members to scrutinise the Government. Topical questions add an opportunity for pressing events of the day to be covered, and of course the Prime Minister is here weekly to answer questions from any Member of the House.

[Mr Allen]

I want to try yet again to stem the growing blight of planted questions from Members on both Front Benches, which has now reached oppressive levels. Back Benchers are treated as though they are in bazaar in Marrakesh, having questions thrust at them—this operates on both sides of the House—and then getting emails to remind them to ask those questions. Parliamentary questions are meant to enable Back Benchers of all parties to hold the Government to account, not to enable games to be played between the two Front-Bench teams. This practice is now extending to planted Adjournment debates and planted Westminster Hall debates and, if we are not careful, my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) will be seeing planted Back-Bench debates very soon. Will the Leader of the House meet the Speaker and the Chair of the Procedure Committee and have another look at this, so that what should be Back-Bench time can once again be as much about Back Benchers as about Front Benchers, as it was when I first started in this House?

[Dr Coffey]

I do not think that the Government should interfere in what Members can or cannot submit as questions. That is for Members to decide—

Strathclyde Review

Graham Allen Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I heard the shadow Leader of the House say that what took place has happened to a Labour Government many times. This of course was the first time that a financial measure has been blocked in the way that it was in the House of Lords. Although my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) share the same accent, I suspect that they do not share the same view for quite the same reasons. I take on board what my hon. Friend says. We will have to consider all three options very carefully, and we will bring forward our proposals in due course. None the less, I note the point that he makes.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be in the Chamber today for the First Reading of the Punishment of the Tax Credit Whistleblowers (Lords) Bill. I fully support what you said, Madam Deputy Speaker, in taking to task the shadow Leader of the House when he used the words, “disorganised hypocrisy.”[Interruption.] I meant organised hypocrisy. I have never seen anything more disorganised—other than me trying to make a joke out of it.

Once again, we have crisis management and firefighting instead of a clear strategy on what the Government want to do on democracy and constitutional change. We are in the middle of great change with English votes for English laws, Scottish devolution and the mess around English devolution, and the Government do not quite know what to do, so they are doing it bit by bit. I urge the Leader of the House to bite the bullet and create a constitutional or citizens’ convention that can look in the round at all those issues together—whether they involve the composition of the Lords and how they affect federalism in the United Kingdom and English devolution—and take a strategic view, rather than having this constant piecemeal firefighting.

[Chris Grayling]

I will not use any words to describe the views of the Opposition party, but given that, after 13 years of Labour, I was left with the clear impression that what it did was to take our constitutional arrangements and throw them up in the air with no idea of how they would land, it is a bit ripe to talk about our having a piecemeal approach to constitutional affairs. What we are trying to do is to sort out some of the mess that was left behind and to put back some stability into our constitutional arrangements, and this is a part of doing that.

Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority Electoral Commission Local Government Boundary Commission for England

Graham Allen Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 General Committees

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

First, I apologise for arriving late and breathless; I was trying to deal with a constituency matter.

The appointments are important, and the Committee should really satisfy itself that the people whom we are putting forward are appropriate for the tasks ahead of them, which are very onerous indeed. One of the roles relates to IPSA, which is a matter of great sensitivity and high importance to members of the public. It is important to get the right person who understands both sides of the House, how Members of Parliament work and the public’s expectations about what we should be doing and how we should do it when using public money. I apologise if I missed this, but I would like to hear a little more from the Minister about whether the proper processes were followed in respect of these appointments, and whether the people, particularly in relation to the IPSA appointment, are well qualified.

Exactly the same applies to the Electoral Commission, because some significant issues are currently affecting our democracy, including the drawing of future constituency boundaries, and every Member of Parliament has a great sensitivity about such issues. We should not consider lightly the question of who should be involved with local government boundaries and the Electoral Commission. If someone has been plucked from a list of the great and the good, they will be okay and they will not rock the boat, but this is perhaps a period when serious scrutiny—more serious than ever—is necessary because of how the Government have politicised the process around the boundary proposals.

The Government still have proposals on the table to reduce the number of Members of Parliament by 50, which will squeeze out those areas that do not have good numbers on the register. That may apply particularly to areas like mine and perhaps yours, Mr Wilson, where high numbers of people are not on the register. The problem applies particularly to inner-city areas like mine and some rural places, which I understand that you represent, Mr Wilson. It is important that we get someone with a view about how to get people on the register, which is an important part of our democracy. If that is not done, it will be a great injustice. This is about the Electoral Commission and getting people registered so that they can play their full part in our democracy. It is not some cosy procedural nicety whereby we put someone on the committee and the job is done. We need people to speak up for the 17 million disfranchised people in this country. They need someone on the Electoral Commission to pipe up for them.

My other concern relating to the Electoral Commission is that the concept has now entered our vocabulary of “voter suppression”, with which Martin Luther King and others would be very familiar. We need someone on the Electoral Commission who will look to voter engagement and go against this tide of voter suppression. I will provide two brief examples. First, in order to register, a person now needs to provide a national insurance number. Many people have it in their head—I do not—but for many others it is a little bar to filling out the forms. [Interruption.] I do not know whether the officials think this is funny, but perhaps they could do me the courtesy of listening to my argument. I know that it is an encumbrance to have elected Members on their feet talking about such matters.

[Dr Coffey]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Allen]

Not just yet.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I ask Mr Allen to stick to the appointments. We do not want a wider debate on electoral registration.

[Mr Allen]

The Government will get their way, so they should not object too much to an elected representative squeaking as the steamroller approaches.

Clearly, the person who is appointed and the process of appointment are very important when looking at a trend within the institutions that we are concerned about—particularly the Electoral Commission—to make it more difficult rather than easier for people to vote or register. That is my simple point on registration. We are now hearing from the Electoral Commission—this person will serve with and interact with the Electoral Commission —that passports may be required for individuals to vote on the day. As anyone would say, particularly if they represent a tougher demography, that may well be enough to put a lot of people off. Even one person being put off by that is too many, so we need someone on these bodies to stick up for the non-registered and for voter registration.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

With regard to the Electoral Commission, there is substantial representation from the political parties on a quarterly basis, so many of these issues could be raised through that avenue. On the specific appointments, there has been substantial scrutiny and consideration of the individuals who have been put forward, including of their background and the contributions that they can offer. The Deputy Leader of the House has given an extensive briefing on their qualifications, experience and talents that they would lend to the specific roles. The Opposition’s position is that we are satisfied that my hon. Friend’s concerns will be addressed and that the individuals proposed will be open to listening to the political parties’ views through the appropriate channels at the Electoral Commission and other bodies.

[Mr Allen]

I am delighted that the Front Benchers are happy with this process. Using what little experience I have as the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee for the past five years and from holding the Electoral Commission to account on a very regular basis—probably even more often than quarterly—the points I wish to make are on behalf of 17 million people who are not on the register. For those people, the tide is now turning away from the extension of the franchise that we have had for 170 years and towards making it more difficult for people to vote and more difficult for people to register. I just want the Minister to reassure us that the people involved in appointments to IPSA and related bodies are the sort of people who will stand up for the individual voter and elector and not always just for Front-Bench interests.

Council of Europe

Graham Allen Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

That is an interesting point, which I touched on in my opening remarks. We had a lengthy statement lasting 90 minutes or so and I have just come back from France myself. People will wonder what we are doing discussing this arcane issue, but the Home Secretary was absolutely spot-on. The mood I experienced in France at the weekend was one of complete determination to carry on with normal business and not to be knocked off course. The Home Secretary was quite right to say that the football international should go ahead, and I think that we are quite right to go ahead with this debate on a Back-Bench motion, discussed by the Backbench Business Committee only last Thursday, arcane though it might be. We have had a good crack at discussing the horrors of the weekend and now we are discussing something fundamental that the people who launched the attacks do not even believe in. Who calls the shots? Is it the legislature or the Executive? There is a constant battle between the two and this tiny vignette continues that tussle.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

Further to his reply to the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), does the right hon. Gentleman not concede that a Parliament that can stand up to Front Benchers and in which Back Benchers can exercise their rights is a Parliament that will answer some of the important questions that have arisen from the events of the weekend far better than one composed of yes-men and women?

[Mr Paterson]

That was well put and I will not attempt to improve on it.

Of the 12 Conservative members of the PACE from the House of Commons in the last Parliament, four retired at the general election and two others said that they did not wish to continue as members. The remaining six said that they wished to be reappointed, and, in accordance with the precedent, had no reason to believe that that would not happen. As we now have 13 members, that would still have left room for seven additions. At the end of October, however, the Government said that they would not reappoint three of the six who wished to be reappointed because they had voted in September in support of retaining purdah for the EU referendum. That was confirmed in a report in The Daily Telegraph on 4 November that quoted “Downing Street sources” saying that

“the trio had paid the price for rebelling against the Government”.

Such direct interference by the Government in the process of reappointment is at odds with the previous convention in the UK and is also against the statute of the Council of Europe. Article 25a of the statute of the Council of Europe emphasises that appointments or elections should be by Parliament and not by Government. As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) rightly and accurately said during the urgent question on 3 November, correctly quoting article 25a:

“The Consultative Assembly shall consist of Representatives of each Member, elected by its Parliament from among the members thereof, or appointed from among the members of that Parliament, in such a manner as it shall decide”.—[Official Report, 3 November 2015; Vol. 601, c. 888.]

The Prime Minister’s role in announcing to Parliament the members of the UK delegation is purely formal, and before so doing he should consult the parties. This time, there was full consultation with the official Opposition and with other parties but none with the Conservative parliamentary party outside the Government. Why, for example, was there no consultation with the chairman of the 1922 committee of Back Benchers?

The three Members who are being punished for supporting the retention of referendum purdah were backed by the opinion of the independent Electoral Commission, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and a majority of this House in a vote on 7 September. By penalising the three, the Government seem to be showing that, far from respecting the decision of the House, they resent it. It is peculiarly inappropriate to choose this issue to do so, as the Council of Europe set up the Venice Commission, otherwise known by its full name of the European Commission for Democracy through Law. It is the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters. It has ruled on the conduct of referendums in guidelines and elsewhere. An analysis of its considerable output indicates that the Government’s stance on purdah in the EU referendum is clearly in breach of the European Commission’s guidelines. Specifically, the Venice Commission’s “Guidelines for Constitutional Referendums at National Level”, published in 2001 at its 47th plenary meeting, clearly states:

“However, the national, regional and local authorities must not influence the outcome of the vote by excessive, one-sided campaigning. The use of public funds by the authorities for campaigning purposes during the referendum campaign proper (ie in the month preceding the vote) must be prohibited.”

As recently as 2005, the Venice Commission built on those guidelines in “Referendums in Europe—an Analysis of the Legal Rules in European States”, which notes that Ireland makes provision for electoral neutrality; that in Portugal, all authorities are required to ensure the strictest impartiality; that Latvia must provide citizens with neutral information; and that the Russian Federation—that well known democracy—has neutrality rules. The UK Government were very much out of line in trying to abandon the purdah rules.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

I will be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. When the Government, in a system without the separation of powers, choose to use their dominance against the legislature, one of the things they are very good at is making very important issues of principle into trivial or procedural matters. This is painted as an introverted, esoteric issue about the Council of Europe. I have no interest whatsoever in the Council of Europe, and I do not ever wish to be on the Council of Europe delegation, but God bless those who do. The question at the heart of the issue could not, however, be more significant—whether Members of the House can elect their own delegates and do so in a secret ballot, rather than letting Front Benchers decide who is to represent the House of Commons on such organisations. The use of a secret ballot in an open franchise is as fundamental an issue as one can get.

On the back of that, I want to make a short and simple point. There are many new Members in the House, several of whom on my side of the House or on both sides of the House may think that having a secret ballot must surely have been the tradition of the House for 50, 100 or 200 years. No, the idea that Members are capable enough of electing their own members of Select Committees—such as you, Madam Deputy Speaker, who served with great distinction on the Select Committee that I chaired in the last Parliament—is six years old. The fact that we can do that and that Select Committee Chairs can themselves be elected in a secret ballot, within the main parties or within all parties in this Parliament, has been part of our environment only for about five years.

My anxiety is that if we do not hold the line on this issue, there could well be slippage back to the days when a particular important person, the independent-minded Chair of the Social Security and Health Committees, Sir Nicholas Winterton was eased out—in fact, rather publicly pushed out—by his side. On my side of the House, one of the most distinguished Select Committee Chairs, Gwyneth Dunwoody, had to fight, hanging on by her fingernails, to the Chair that she had made such an important part of this House. If I may say so, what had hitherto been rather a backwater, the Transport Committee, became one of the key places in which issues were fought out in the House. We could return to those days very quickly unless colleagues in all parties hang on to the principle that they can elect their own representatives.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman was part of the original constitutional Select Committee, the Wright Committee, which recommended that all Committees of this House should be elected. Does this whole incident not demonstrate that not only should such European committees be elected by the House, but House Committees should be elected as well?

[Mr Allen]

That is absolutely right. We have already seen slippage. I will not go into any detail, but the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee was abolished by Government Front Benchers who decided that they did not want it to continue with some of its work. We have seen stalling for six years on the creation of a House business Committee, to which all parties said they would sign up. We are now seeing an erosion of the principle that the secret ballot should rule when we appoint colleagues in the House to representative positions outside it. This is an area of very great concern. It should concern Members of independent mind and none. Members should hold the line on this very significant issue. It has been painted as trivial, but it is actually one of the most fundamental things a Parliament can discuss.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

No, I cannot explain that to the hon. Gentleman; I think he knows, like the rest of the House, that, very fortunately, that is not a point of order for the Chair.

[Mr Graham Allen]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it possible for the Chair to inform the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) that he would have better understood how to vote and what the discussion was about, had he attended the debate—rather than coming in two minutes before the end?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Very fortunately, the matter of Members being in the Chamber or not is also not for the Chair. On a point of information, however, I should say that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) was here for a fair amount of the debate, so I am sure he understood as well as anyone.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Allen Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Commons Chamber

The Leader of the House was asked—

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

6. What progress is being made in establishing a House business committee; and if he will make a statement.

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

There was an absence of consensus on this matter at the end of the last Parliament, and there is still no consensus now. We discussed it in Westminster Hall last week with the hon. Gentleman and two other hon. Members.

[Mr Allen]

The Wright Committee reported to this House and created a Backbench Business Committee, the election of Select Committee Chairs and the election of Select Committee Members. The House approved all those issues. The one issue that it has not been able to approve or has not approved is the creation of a House business committee by which Members rather than the Government or alternative Government can be represented on it. Will the Deputy Leader of the House allow the House of Commons to make a decision in Government time on whether we should have a House business committee or not?

[Dr Coffey]

As I explained at length in the Westminster Hall debate last week, one of our predecessors, the noble Lord Lansley set our four tests. We have yet to receive a recommendation or create a proposal that can pass the four tests that we believe necessary for the creation of a House business committee.

Standing Orders (Public Business)

Graham Allen Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

I am very grateful—

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can you inform the House of your view of Members who intervene and wish to be one of the 50 who are waiting to contribute to this debate? Good knockabout stuff though it is, some Members have already intervened two or three times. Will you take that into account?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Just for a change, I can directly answer the hon. Gentleman’s point of order. The view of the Chair is that if a Member has requested to speak but makes several long interventions, that Member’s place in the speaking order will go further down the list every time they intervene. I can make that absolutely clear. I hope the House is listening and will allow the hon. Gentleman to finish his speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I want to make some progress, because I am conscious that a lot of my hon. Friends want to speak.

This is the fourth time these hastily redrawn plans have been presented to the House, which says absolutely everything we need to know about them. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) want to intervene? He is chuntering away.

[Mr Graham Allen]

I will gladly intervene, but very quickly, in view of what I said earlier. The hon. Gentleman is posing as a second-class Member of Parliament, but he is getting a first-class allocation of unlimited time. Perhaps he would care to give those of us who are second class a go as well.

[Pete Wishart]

May I say ever so gently to the hon. Gentleman that this is being done to us and it has taken an hour and a half and six speeches before a Scottish Member of Parliament has been allowed to speak? We will take our time and I will not rush for his sake.

I have scoured the fourth set of Standing Orders to see whether they change the first set significantly. Perhaps one curious thing could be explained to me. On the Speaker’s certification, the Speaker is now required and obliged to speak to two members of the Panel of Chairs before deciding whether a Bill will be English-only. I have a lot of respect for those on the Panel of Chairs—they do a fantastic job chairing the Committees of this House—but I have never known them to be an authority on the constitution. Surely it would be as well to ask two random members of the public for their views. The people that should be spoken to are the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. They are the bodies that this is being dumped on and it is their devolution settlements that will be impacted, but there is no requirement on the Speaker to consult them.

The most invidious thing about the proposals is what they will do to the Speaker. The Speaker will be politicised, which is almost unforgivable. That could set the Speaker in conflict with Scottish Members of Parliament. If we do not agree with and reject one of the certifications, what are we supposed to do? We are here to represent our constituents, so of course we are going to do what we can to ensure that their voice is heard. The proposal could lead to a challenge that goes all the way to judicial review and the Supreme Court. We know that the rulings of the Speaker are unchallengeable because of parliamentary privilege, but if constituents who watch what is going on here feel that their rights are not being represented properly, we will end up in the Supreme Court and judicial review.

One of the daftest things the Leader of the House has said—I say this candidly, because I have a lot of affection for him—is that there is no such thing as Barnett consequentials. He told the Procedure Committee:

“I have looked long and hard at the issue of Barnett consequentials and I think they are a bit of both an illusion and a side issue. I don’t actually believe that Barnett consequentials exist.”

According to the right hon. Gentleman, Barnett consequentials are up there with Santa Claus, the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy. What he said about Barnett consequentials is absurd and I will give him the chance to take it back.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

Let me do something that nobody else who has anything on the Order Paper can do, which is read out my amendment. If we had to listen to all the amendments that are before the House, it would take longer than a speech by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). For those who want to vote rather than turn tail and go to the Tea Room, I will press my amendment to a vote at 4 pm. It states that

“this House concurs with the Lords Message of 21 July, that it is expedient that a joint committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider and report on the constitutional implications of the Government’s revised proposals to change the Standing Orders of the House of Commons in order to give effect to English Votes for English Laws, and that the committee should report on the proposals by 30 March 2016.”

That amendment is supported by seven different parties in the House, and until I heard some tribalism in the debate’s early exchanges, I had hoped that Members of good will throughout the House would have supported it. It is clear that there is no consensus. There are those for and against, and I accept that that is the way this place works. However, if we are to do something of a democratic nature—such as change the Standing Orders of the House of Commons or the way that votes are recorded—I hope that people will seek consensus because they are Members of Parliament, as well as members of the Government or the alterative Government.

That amendment first saw the light of day in July and was crafted in the House of Lords by that wild maverick, Sir Robin Butler, now Lord Butler of Brockwell. Together with a number of colleagues, including the former Scottish Secretary, the former Home Secretary, and many other distinguished people from the second Chamber, he was trying to create something that could unite people not merely across parties, but across Houses.

There are clearly problems and many people have raised difficulties—today’s Order Paper runs to 17 pages, plus seven pages of amendments. I hope that everyone will accept that there are difficulties, so let us find a mechanism to resolve those problems. Let us take our time. There is no need to rush at this; there is nothing pending or desperately urgent that will not be dealt with. The Government have a majority and can do what they wish in this place. I ask only that they not be tyrannical, and that they consult. By setting up a Joint Committee they could see the evidence being prepared in the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and look carefully at the report that was published this week by the Procedure Committee. They should listen to last night’s debate—I bet many Members have not had the chance in their busy day to consider what some eminent, respected people across the House of Lords said about this issue.

We should take time to look again at the McKay proposals produced by a distinguished, and totally impartial, Clerk of this House. The views of political parties, and others, could be fed in, so that we come up with something that everybody in the House can agree on, not because it is imposed, or because “We don’t like it because they’re doing it”, but because we respect work that has been done by a Joint Committee of eminent people across the House. I hope that those warning flags will be heeded and that the consequentials for our democracy and constitution will be taken seriously with the creation of a Joint Committee when we vote at 4 pm.

Business of the House

Graham Allen Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The victims law is an important part of what we brought forward at the election. I can assure my hon. Friend that the intention of the Government is to fulfil their manifesto in full. We have a lot of business to get through, but I have no doubt that we will move on to that soon, and that it will make a difference.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

Among the remaining orders on the Order Paper, the Leader of the House will see that there is a motion signed by Members of all parties saying that this House concurs with the Lords Message that a joint committee be set up to look at the constitutional implications of English votes for English laws. It is 104 years since this House has refused to acknowledge or answer a message from the House of Lords. Will the Leader of the House ensure that when the English votes for English laws proposals come forward next week an answer to that message is made very clear to their lordships?

[Chris Grayling]

When we come to this issue next week, I will have acted on that message. I remind the hon. Gentleman that this is a debate about the Standing Orders of the House of Commons and it would be quite a big step for us to take a move towards inviting the House of Lords to rule, consider and act on our own Standing Orders.

House Business Committee

Graham Allen Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the creation of a House Business Committee.

Welcome to the Chair, Mr Pritchard. It would probably be hard to think of anything more technical, boring or dry than a House Business Committee—that is what people would like you to think. But it is actually the heart of political power in respect of Parliament’s relationship to Government. It is amazing that in this day and age, at least 200 years since Montesquieu wrote “The Spirit of Laws”, which talked about the separation of powers, the good old United Kingdom still does not have a written settlement. It does not have something that we can all refer to so that we know what Parliament does, what Government do and what the judiciary does, and that keeps them separate.

The lesson learned at great cost in the French revolution, and enacted with some blood in the American revolution, has bypassed the United Kingdom. We still have a system that Charles I would recognise, in which the Executive have supreme control and what they say goes—only Charles I would see that instead of a monarch, we have a Government. They are benign, because we live in a democratic culture, and people are normally very nice to each other and quite polite. The reality, however, is that power is exercised by Government over Parliament, rather than Government seeing Parliament as a partner. That makes our system dysfunctional and incapable of providing a serious process of reconciliation or holding to account.

[Mike Gapes in the Chair]

Of course, many people have vested interests in keeping the system exactly the way it is. I put it to the Government, at both ministerial and official level, that that is an immature way of viewing our politics. It weakens our politics and our governance, particularly in this day and age when people are so turned off by politics in general. This is a moment where we can win people back, and say, “You know what? We are going to listen to people. We do not always want to do what they tell us, but we will listen to them and their elected representatives because that is part of the warp and weft of our democracy.”

By doing that, we could bring people together and command greater consensus on our decision making. The decision-making process would be less arbitrary and much stronger if we had that level of maturity in our politics—if the Government did not cynically laugh up their sleeve and say, “We are going to ram this through if we possibly can, come what may, despite what people think,” rather than, “I wonder whether any of these people in Parliament who are not in government have a contribution to make. Shall we listen on the off-chance that they have?”

Perhaps if we had a proper Report stage in the House of Commons, we could find a way of making better law. Perhaps it would save us time, because we would not have to come back to things, as we infamously did on, I think, five occasions during one Parliament on a criminal justice Bill. If we listened to people, we would not have to swallow, give in or U-turn, but we could distinguish the good from the bad and help to make our system better. Doing so would make our politics and our democracy stronger, and it would certainly make our Parliament and governmental relationship stronger.

That is not the way we have chosen to do things so far, however. The Wright Committee suggested that we should have a House Business Committee. Why would we want such a thing? It would bring to the table Parliament and the respective Whips. In addition to those who work for the Government and the alternative Government, it would bring to the table some people from the institution—perhaps the leader of the 1922 committee, the chair of the parliamentary Labour party, a couple of people elected from the Back Benches, someone from a minority party and a nominee of the Speaker. The committee could have a majority from the Government so that, having heard all the voices, the Government could still, if they wanted, ram through whatever they felt was convenient to their long-term interest, whoever was in power.

We would not lose a lot by having such a meeting once a week, and we would risk gaining an incredible amount. For instance, the 90 minutes allocated for the debate in the main Chamber tonight, which everybody seems to feel is incredibly important, on whether there should be a legally binding obligation on deficit reduction could be extended. We could use parliamentary time more effectively. Perhaps, Mr Gapes, someone of your distinguished history on that committee might say, “We are going to clear off early if we possibly can on Tuesday, and we will have only four people in the Chamber. Why don’t we use that time effectively to discuss important issues?” It would not be necessary to find a clerkly device to wangle one’s way on to the agenda and squeak in a few words to heckle the Executive steamroller; instead, we could have a proper debate on refugees, on the Redcar steelworks or on tax credits. We have just had such a debate in Westminster Hall, which is a well-attended but none the less secluded venue for something so important.

I do not raise this matter—yet again—in anger; I raise it in frustration at the fact that our governance is such that we would rather keep control than find a sensible way to conduct a modern and mature democracy.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Can the hon. Gentleman explain to me why in May 2009, the Prime Minister, then Leader of the Opposition, made a powerful speech about fixing broken politics, in which he said that there should be a business of the House committee; why he committed in the coalition agreement to establishing such a committee within three years of the Parliament; and why it never actually happened? What evil forces behind the scenes are stopping this?

[Mr Allen]

I do not believe that there are any evil forces. There is a desire when in government not to be bothered with explaining things any more than one has to. Governments want to get on and do business. There is a feeling that parliamentarians can be treated with contempt, because Parliament is a holding pen for the sheep who will troop through the Lobby to enact measures that have been in a manifesto or on the Government’s agenda, and that is the way things are done. I do not think that people are evil, unpleasant or malicious; I think that they are simply missing an opportunity.

I want to mention the two most powerful people in the House of Commons: Roy Stone, the principal private secretary to the Chief Whip, and Mike Winter, the head of the Office of the Leader of the House. They are decent civil servants, but they could be told by an incoming Prime Minister, “This is simply not good enough. We are a laughing stock compared with other legislatures.”

We are elected on election day and the electorate give us legitimacy, which is sucked out of us by a Government who have no legitimacy of their own. They are not directly elected, so they have to get legitimacy from somewhere. It is rather like a scene from a science fiction film in which people are tied to a wall and pipes attached to their veins, so that they can give sustenance to a beast that sucks their blood. Government suck out the legitimacy that the electorate give to Parliament and leave us a shell, and we are the worse for it. Government stride off, pumped up with the legitimacy that is rightfully Parliament’s, because they have none of their own.

I do not blame any of the civil servants or incumbent Ministers, because that has been a feature of governance in this country—this includes Labour Governments and Labour Prime Ministers—for as long as I have been in Parliament. I am simply trying to put on the table yet again the fact that there is a better way of doing things, as a result of which we would not be held so much in contempt. If the Government involved Parliament and listened to people, they would act as a symbol to people out there that we are doing things in a different way.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this important subject, as he has for many years. The lesson is that all Governments and Governments-in-waiting are power retentive, with an addiction to hanging on to every scrap of power. They think that, in setting up a House Business Committee through which the House decided its own business, they would lose a minute part of their power.

Because of the Petitions Committee, earlier this week this room was filled with members of the public, who were all allowed to use their iPads to send messages, intent on a subject of their choice through petition. That is one step forward but, unfortunately, it tends to end in disappointment because no decisions are taken at the end of those petition debates.

[Mr Allen]

Yes, the petitions question is one that my Select Committee—the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) was a distinguished member—looked at, along with all the Wright reforms. Indeed, one of my anxieties is that new Members coming to this place just assume that some of those bits of progress are part of the atmosphere here and have been for several hundred years—not true. Select Committee Chairs and members, some of whom are present today, have just been elected for only the second time in parliamentary history.

Before that, the Government—the very institution that is meant to be held to account—decided who went on those Committees. What an absolute nonsense that was! I was in the Whips Office; of course the people who the Whips think will do more appropriate things were put on Committees. They are not going to put difficult people into politically tender situations. People are going to be rewarded with Select Committee Chairs and so on. That is no way to run a democracy.

Fundamentally, GCSE-level politics says that unless we have a plurality of institutions, each with their own legitimacy, independence and standing, we cannot say that we have the structure of a genuine democracy. That is where we need to get to and where we will get to, either by kicking and screaming as the Union is dismembered, mass cynicism pervades the electorate and the concept of democracy starts to come under threat, or by using our brains to try to get people to pull together and act in partnership, in a plural way, to build the democracy that the country deserves and needs.

I just managed to squeak in, Mr Gapes, moments before your good self because I was on the Floor of the House where we were talking about devolution, democracy and giving people power. I welcome the Cities and Local Government Bill and the efforts of the Secretary of State who has done a fantastic job on it, perhaps to the alarm of some of my colleagues. But we need to spread that further. We need to say to people, “We cannot do this in little isolated blocks. We actually need to renew our democracy.” That is my ask of Government Ministers and officials.

I know there is a speech ready. I know it will say, “Have we have passed the test set by Mr Lansley? Yes we have. Blah blah.” There will be a defence that although it appeared in the coalition agreement and was reneged on, there were reasons for that. There will, no doubt, be a statement saying, “It was in the manifesto but we didn’t do it. The Prime Minister himself committed to serious reform and certain things got in the way.” I am not interested, to be honest. I would like the Minister to get to her feet and engage me in debate about why we cannot build a better way of running the relationship between Government and Parliament without it being a relationship of subordination and domination. Why can we not get that fantastic added value that we all get in our family affairs by having a properly balanced relationship where discussions happen and decisions are made when people come to a consensus?

I will put this matter on the agenda again if I can. There is a lot more to be said. I could say a lot more but it would be very repetitive because we have raised the issue since the Wright Committee. In other words, we have raised the issue with all parties in government. We have raised this issue with coalition Governments, Labour Governments and Conservative Governments. At one point in this historical process—I hope I am still alive to see it and cheer: from afar, no doubt—the Government will accept that building an effective, honest and open partnership with Parliament is a better way to govern a democracy than what they do now, which is often to impose and to control.

Let a thousand flowers bloom. Let a debate take place. Perhaps a House Business Committee—minor though that may be, and technical and dry though it may sound —could be a symbol of that new start.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

I am so pleased that my hon. Friend is interested in the future of my career. At the time, the noble Lord Lansley said that, yes, it had been in the coalition agreement but that he feared he would not be able to effect it because he had not been able to find a model that satisfied those tests. The tests are still valid. Could such a Committee co-ordinate the business of the House of Lords? How would a weekly meeting react to fast-changing events and the need to change business at short notice? How could it represent all Back Benchers without becoming unwieldy in size?

The current system gives every Back Bencher a weekly opportunity to hold the Leader of the House to account for the proposed business, to question him on that business and to make requests for future business. The previous coalition Government gave evidence to the PCRC on the large amount of consultation that had been undertaken and on the diversity of views that had been expressed, none of which fulfilled the tests or looked capable of securing consensus.

I remind Members of the positive reforms and developments in the last Parliament, which should be rightly celebrated. A PCRC report in the last Parliament considered the impact of reform and welcomed the progress that had been made since 2009—indeed, we voted for most of the reforms in 2010. The PCRC stated:

“There have been clear advances in the effectiveness of Commons select committees… The Backbench Business Committee has been a success and we welcome the good working relationships which it has established with the business managers”.

We should also consider our recent experience of scrutinising legislation. There have been an increased number of multi-day Report stages—there were 25 in the 2010 to 2015 Parliament, compared with 11 in the previous Parliament. There has been increased use of pre-legislative scrutiny, with 17 measures in the last Session being published in draft. We have allocated more time for scrutiny, but four in five Public Bill Committees, 83%, finished early last year, which is more than in the previous year. We have also implemented explanatory statements on amendments.

The House and the Government have not rested on their laurels. Ten of the reforms highlighted by the 2009 House of Commons Reform Committee report related to better engagement with the public. I am pleased that, following collaborative work between the Procedure Committee and the Government, this House agreed to a joint system of e-petitions, thereby meeting the public’s expectation to be able to petition their Parliament and to seek action from their Government in response. The Petitions Committee created in this Parliament as part of the joint package fulfils that expectation. Two debates have been organised by the Committee, including one on Monday led by the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), which attracted wide attention.

I am disappointed by the reference of the hon. Member for Nottingham North—dare I say it?—to colleagues being lifeless clones who are just part of the machine. He referred to executive power, and he needs no reminder that the Executive are part of this House. This place may be unusual, although not rare, in not having a separate Executive and legislature, but I do not believe that this is a weak Parliament, far from it. Parliament does hold the Government to account. He referred to legislation being rammed through but, despite what people think, my party has a mandate from winning the election. Nevertheless, it has not been my experience, either as a Back Bencher or as a Minister, that the Government ignore other people; in fact, I find that the Government have listened to people’s views. Debates have been extended and Bills have been amended in Committee and on Report to reflect discussions with other MPs. That is mature politics, unlike what was suggested earlier.

There has already been a large amount of scrutiny on the subject of tonight’s debate, but I am pleased that we are debating it once again. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will decide whether some of his colleagues are mindlessly walking through one Lobby or another. The result will be interesting.

I hope that I have addressed the points about the coalition agreement by simply reiterating what the noble Lord Lansley has previously said to the House, but I recognise that the hon. Gentleman will still be disappointed. I conclude by assuring him, and other Members present, that we will continue to work constructively and positively with the relevant Committees and others on both sides of the House. Ultimately, we are all parliamentarians, and we all fought an election to get here. We are all proud of that and want Parliament to work, but we need to do something feasible that allows scrutiny while allowing the Government to enact their legislative agenda.

[Mr Graham Allen]

On a point of order, Mr Gapes. Would it be in order to squeak against the steamroller one last time by having a vote?

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Mr Allen, this is not the appropriate time to raise that point. You should raise it after I have put the question.

Question put.

The Chair’s opinion as to the decision of the Question was challenged.

Question not decided (Standing Order No. 10(13)).

Business of the House

Graham Allen Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point and I have every sympathy with what he says. We have been clear that we in this country will not allow taxpayers’ money to be put on the line for a bail-out. We are also clear that the political agreement reached between member states must be adhered to. That is a matter for the eurozone and for its members to resolve. We cannot be in a position where countries outside the eurozone have their taxpayers’ money put at risk in circumstances such as this. We are clear about that, and sympathetic to, my hon. Friend’s point, and there will be a number of opportunities next week for him to raise a point about which he is absolutely correct.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

The Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill is currently finishing its progress through the other place and will come here shortly. Will the Leader of the House tell us when that will be? Will he also ensure that this English devolution Bill takes as much time on the Floor of the House as we have rightly spent discussing the Scotland Bill, which is a devolution Bill for Scotland? Will he ensure that the 85% of the UK population that is English can see that this House fulfils its obligations by considering the Bill on the Floor of the House and not in Committee?

[Chris Grayling]

I will take a careful look at the timetable for the Bill. We have a lot of business to get through in the autumn, but we will endeavour to make sure there is as much time available for key measures as possible. I absolutely share the hon. Gentleman’s view on the importance of this measure. It is a part of a devolution package designed to provide additional powers across the United Kingdom. It is right and proper that cities such as Manchester have additional powers. My hope and expectation is that the Bill will pass and deliver those powers.

Summer Adjournment

Graham Allen Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

My elation at being called first from the Opposition Benches is matched only by the slight annoyance that I felt yesterday when I spent six hours in here without being called. But I am delighted and really grateful to be called to speak today.

In the first of my three brief points, may I ask whether it is possible, in this day and age, for the Procedure Committee to consider having a list of speakers for a debate on the back of the Speaker’s Chair, so that colleagues can have some way of managing their day sensibly? Although Members will obviously be in the Chamber well before they speak and well after they speak, they will be able to plan their days more effectively.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

That is an absolutely excellent point. In a modern Parliament, there should be no reason why we cannot have more control over who speaks and when they speak. I wish to put it on the record that I am delighted that the Deputy Speakers are not hiding the lists as well as they may have done in the past. At least we can get some information, but having a list on the back of the Speaker’s Chair will be even more helpful.

[Mr Allen]

Indeed, that is a welcome development. Communication channels, even informal ones, should be established. We could take this a little further and ensure that this place attracts Members more seriously, rather than have them undergo this sort of endurance test before they can make a point of importance in a debate.

Going from the micro to the macro, my second point is about English devolution. Colleagues in the House—I look to some of those on the SNP Benches—will no doubt vouch for the fact that I have served my time on the Scotland Bill and I hope I made some helpful contributions. For me, that was really a warm-up for English devolution, which affects an even larger number of people in the Union than the Scotland Bill, important and essential though that is.

The Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill is in the other place at the moment. It has been scrutinised carefully on the Floor of the House, which means that everyone has been able to contribute to what is, arguably, the most important Bill that will come before this House over the next five years.

I do not wish to get sidetracked on to English votes for English laws, which is a relatively straightforward and perhaps minor procedural matter that has very little to do with the devolution of power to the localities, cities, regions and councils of England. The proposal is misnamed. It is in fact English MPs’ votes for English laws, which is yet another Westminster bubble issue. Devolution is about how we all exercise power in the localities and about how electors and members of the public can see that they are in control of their politics. That is where we need to get to. I hope very much that the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill will come to this place briskly in September, that colleagues from all parts of the House will consider it and work on it, and that it goes as far as we have gone with our Scottish friends on the Scotland Bill.

What is good about devolving power to Scotland is that Scottish people can rightly take control of their own destinies and lives as much as is humanly possible within a Union and a federation of nations. I would welcome that 100%. I have sat through the proceedings on the Scotland Bill to learn all the lessons. One of the lessons for England is to do with financial devolution. We need to ensure that there is income tax assignment so that local government—whether it is based on combined authorities, regions or whatever people in England wish it to be—can go forward and people can take control.

What unites Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish people and their representatives on this issue is the fact that Whitehall has had its day. It is a massive over-centralised beast that tries to control everything. Unless we put it beyond change or entrench it, which is one of the many issues that I raised in the debates on the Scotland Bill, it will inevitably get sucked back to the centre. The gravitational pull of one Government or another to control will be so strong that unless we are clear about entrenching it—and there are lots of way to do that—we will find that the power that we would like to give will inevitably go back to the centre. That is why Labour’s posture going into the 2015 election was not adequate. Suggestions of beefing up the amount of money that the centre gives to the localities and creating super local enterprise partnerships rather than genuinely devolving power to England meant that people felt that we were not differentiated from other parties, and we paid a very dear price for that.

If we are not clear about what we stand for in 2020 and beyond and if we do not have a vision, then those who do—even if it is a vision with which I do not necessarily agree—will seize our territory in England as certainly they have done in Scotland. It is a lesson for all of us. Essentially, to EVEL I wish to add DEVIL—devolved English voices in local government. Let us have more DEVIL about our debates and a little less EVEL, because then we will have all four nations of the Union being able to master their own fate—not in a way that is decided by Whitehall. We do not want Whitehall saying, “You have got to do it this way; otherwise we won’t let you.” No, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland need organically to grow how they wish to devolve and exercise power. There is that most beautiful concept described by the ugly word, “subsidiarity”—doing these things at the most appropriate level. Ultimately, there must be a federal answer, which will also lead to federal parties within the United Kingdom. That is my hope and my aim. Indeed, along with other colleagues in my party, I have written to the four leadership challengers to ask their views on that, so that we can learn the lessons and have devolution in England.

My last point is more specific, and relates to the fact that I am a Member of Parliament for the constituency that sends the fewest number of young people to university in the United Kingdom. We all have great records that we wish to boast about; this is one that I bear as a cross and think about every single working day of my life. The young people in my constituency deserve as much of a chance as anyone else, but, because of the demography, that is rather difficult to achieve. We can do stuff about that.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

On that point, the whole House knows the wonderful work that my hon. Friend has done on early intervention. Does he agree that the biggest thing that we can do to help more young people from his constituency, and other disadvantaged young people, is to concentrate on the early years and early intervention?

[Mr Allen]

I am trying to be brief, because I wish to retain my place in the pecking order of being called early, so I am keen not to go into a topic that is very dear to my heart. Obviously, the idea of helping every baby, child and young person grow up with social and emotional capability is the key to everything—to relationship building, getting a decent job, and avoiding drink, drug abuse and all the rest that comes with that. My hon. Friend is very generous in her comments about a matter that is dear to my heart.

When young people get to the point of thinking of going to university, particularly when that is not in the culture and tradition of their area, they need a bit of a hand. I have to say openly in this Chamber that having gone to work after school, I would not have gone to college and then to university had there not been a full grant to get me there, and many other people can say that. I am one of those who benefited from that system. Over recent years there has been a fantastic effort by people, especially headteachers, in my area, my city and my locality, Nottingham North. Although Nottingham North is way off the pace—an outlier from all the other areas—we have closed the gap massively, but still the rate of young people going to university, instead of being one in three, which is the average throughout the United Kingdom, is one in eight in my constituency.

I finish with one final point related to that, and I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your generosity. Just last week, those who have worked night and day—the headteachers, the teachers, the parents and those young people who are in a minority in trying to get to university—received a devastating blow in the Budget, which said that low income families who get a grant to help those young people take that first step on the higher and further education ladder will no longer get it. As my area is quite a low income area, 93% of families in my constituency, according to the last figure, can get a full or partial grant.

That was ended by the Chancellor last week. I am sure it looked okay when he was going through the list of things that might save a little bit of money here and a little bit there, but it is a devastating blow to the motivation, the drive and the aspiration that the Government talk about so much. I will raise this issue again in full if I secure an Adjournment debate. I will not take the time of the House to go through it all now, but I hope very much that, amid all the billions and billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money at his disposal, the Chancellor will allow people in my constituency who, perhaps as in my case, will not be able to go to university without that small help.

It is no good replacing the grant with a loan when dealing with families who regard the current sum of £45,000 as a mountain to repay. If the figure goes up to £55,000 or £60,000, it will not be in their compass even to consider helping their young daughter or their young son go to university. I ask the Chancellor to think again, and I ask colleagues across the House to support any move that we can bring forward to restore the grant to low income families, so that people who are capable of going to university are not prevented from doing so by a lack of funding.