Backbench Business Committee

Greg Knight Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Deputy Leader of the House for his preamble. In the light of what he has said, why do the Government consider it inappropriate to leave this motion until after the Procedure Committee has reported?

[Mr Heath]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that question. Having already said what a splendid fellow he is, I am happy to address the issue that he raises. We expect the Procedure Committee’s conclusions to be of great value, as they have been on a number of other topics. I want to emphasise that today’s motion is not intended to pre-empt the review—[Interruption.] Well, it simply does not. It makes three changes that need to be made this Session in order to take effect before the next elections for members of the Backbench Business Committee and therefore before the completion of the review. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, those changes arise in part from points made in evidence to the Procedure Committee’s inquiry into the 2010 elections and that Committee itself envisaged changes as regards minority parties being made in advance of the review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bone]

Of course that is the case. These elections will determine the Backbench Business Committee not for the term of the Parliament but for a year. If the Procedure Committee happened to report after the next elections and there was a change to procedure, the elections afterwards could be run on the new system. There was absolutely no need to prejudge the Select Committee report, apart from the fact that it might have resolved matters differently from what the Government wanted.

[Mr Knight]

May I place it on the record that the Procedure Committee will in no way feel inhibited by what is determined today? Does my hon. Friend agree that what the House decides today it can later decide to undo or amend?

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s comments. Nobody who knows him will think that this sort of ploy could possibly affect what his Committee does.

I turn to one of the most appalling aspects of today—the whipping on the Conservative Benches. There is no question but that this is House business, and there is no question but that it is Back-Bench business. By convention, such votes should not carry a Whip; they should be free votes. There is no way that the Executive should try to instruct the House how to organise Back-Bench business affairs, but Conservative Members were told last week that we would be on a three-line Whip to vote for this outrageous motion. After protests, the Whips Office reduced it to a one-line Whip. [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) laughs, and of course he knows why the Whips Office did that: to keep Back Benchers away from the House. I have received a very nice text from a Member saying, “I’m out working in my constituency. Aren’t the xxx Whips very devious?” That is very true.

After our protests, then, the Whips Office reduced the vote to a one-line Whip, but that is not a genuine free vote, because Members here will still be instructed how to vote. This is wrong, should not be happening and flies in the face of the coalition Government’s pledge to restore trust in Parliament. Even worse, I understand that Ministers and Parliamentary Private Secretaries are on a three-line Whip to vote through this despicable motion. The very people who should have no interest in Back-Bench business are the ones who are being told to vote for the changes. I am more than happy to take an intervention from the Leader of the House if that is not the case. [Interruption.] I see he does not want to intervene. This really is going back to the bad old days.