Business of the House

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Oven-ready questions are not acceptable.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Would the Leader of the House grant a general debate in Government time on attitudes to ceasefires? Following the welcome ceasefire in the middle east, Hezbollah supporters there tried to claim a victory yesterday, reminiscent of IRA supporters in west Belfast doing likewise. Could we have a debate to ensure that the general public know that peace is welcome, but not people trying to turn peace into a victory parade?

[Lucy Powell]

I think we can all welcome the ceasefire in Lebanon and hope that efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza are successful soon. At the end of the day, we all want a peaceful solution, and we need a political route to a two-state solution, so a ceasefire is only the beginning of a process. It is really important that trust is maintained and that we can work towards that long-term sustainable peace.

Business of the House

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his campaign. As he knows, illegal parking is classified as antisocial behaviour and it can have devastating consequences, particularly if emergency vehicles are not able to access roads that they need to access. He will know that the next Home Office questions are on 26 February and the next Department for Transport questions are on 8 February, but I will make sure that both Secretaries of State have heard his concerns.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Birthday greetings, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will the Leader of the House endeavour to find Government time for a debate to celebrate sporting excellence in Northern Ireland, given that last night young Conor Bradley scored his first goal for Liverpool football club and that, at the other end of the playing spectrum, we had the announcement by Steven Davis of his retirement from professional football, which I have alluded to in my early-day motion 333?

[That this House notes the announcement of Steven Davis to retire from playing professional football; acknowledges the outstanding achievements of Steven, who at 39 years old holds the UK men’s international caps record with 140 appearances for Northern Ireland as well as 742 club appearances for top flight clubs in England and Scotland, having played for his beloved Glasgow Rangers in two separate spells using the term, it’s such a special football club, in his retirement statement; and wishes him and his family every blessing and good wish as he decides on his post playing career.]

[Penny Mordaunt]

That is an excellent suggestion for a debate, and the hon. Gentleman will know how to apply for one in the usual way. I am sure that the whole House would want to join him in his congratulations to both Conor and Steven on all that they have done to make us all very proud.

Tributes (Speaker Martin)

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

When I first came into the House in 2001, Speaker Martin was in the Chair and immediately made me and my colleagues welcome. He was impeccable in his kindness. I remember several occasions when I had cause to speak with him, and he never failed to be polite and to assist. I distinctly remember the parliamentary party of the Democratic Unionist party once having concerns about parliamentary proceedings—I do not remember why—and we arranged a meeting with the Speaker to see if he could be of assistance. Of course, we met him and had a cup of tea, and he was impeccably polite as normal, and as I would expect a Speaker to be, but what struck me was not the kindness, the politeness or the cup of tea but the fact that within a day or two the issues we raised were dealt with. Not only was he impeccably polite; he was efficient.

We pass on our regards and our thoughts and prayers to the Martin family. As a Speaker and a family man, he was not arrogant—he did not slap Members down—but he ruled resolutely and was always a Speaker to whom Back-Bench Members could turn to get issues resolved. We will always remember Speaker Michael Martin.

Private Members’ Bills

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jeff Smith]

That is absolutely right, and I will come to time limits shortly.

We have two key problems. The first, which is widely acknowledged, is of Bills being talked out. Other hon. Members may want to speak about their experience of that. I have no doubt that Members who indulge in that practice will say in their defence, “We are working within the rules.” If that is the case, we must change the rules.

It is not just about MPs talking Bills out, however. The second problem is that it is very difficult for a private Member’s Bill to make any progress without the Government’s support. If a Bill gets a Second Reading, even if the will of the House is clear, there is no guarantee that it will get parliamentary time to enable it to make progress. Back-Bench Members from all parties find it incredibly difficult to make a difference unless they have Government support and co-operation. It is therefore dishonest to pretend that Members can bring in a Bill without at least tacit Government support. Those are the two key problems, but we could introduce a combination of measures to tackle them and allow a culture change in this place in which private Members’ Bills are taken seriously and given proper consideration. They relate both to when private Members’ Bills are taken and how they are dealt with.

The key question, which has already been identified, is whether private Members’ Bills should be confined to Fridays, because when they are, it is almost inevitable that they will not receive the consideration they are due. I am a new MP who came in last year, but from speaking to long-serving colleagues it seems there has been an increasing expectation in recent years that hon. Members should spend more time in their constituencies being available to their constituents.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. As a Member in this House since 2001, I have put a high premium on being accessible to constituents on a Friday, as well as during as much of the rest of the week as I can, as I am sure that he does. Does he agree that the suggestion that private Members’ Bills should perhaps be discussed on a Tuesday evening would be at least a step in the right direction, rather than giving them the graveyard slot of a Friday, which massively inconveniences those of us who put a premium on Fridays and who live a considerable distance from Westminster?

[Jeff Smith]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. It is quite correct that Members should be able to spend some time on a weekday in constituencies, visiting schools and businesses, doing advice surgeries and meeting residents, and it is sensible to allow one weekday a week for that. There should not necessarily be the need, therefore, to attend Parliament on a Friday. If we were to move consideration of private Members’ Bills to another day, that would give all Members the opportunity both to take part in debates that consider those Bills seriously and to have time in their constituencies.

There are options. We could take private Members’ Bills on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening or morning, or we could use some Back-Bench business time. I think it is recognised that that time is not heavily subscribed, so we could use some of it more effectively to deal with private Members’ Bills on days when all Members are around Parliament. In addition, we should ensure that private Members’ Bills are properly programmed, with sufficient time to discuss each one that comes forward.

It is not just about when, but about how we deal with the business. Here are three things we could do. First, there is no reason not to have time limits on speeches in debates on private Members’ Bills. We have them regularly in other debates, so why should we not have them in those? Secondly, we could bring in rules to guarantee a vote on a private Member’s Bill on Second reading.

House of Lords Reform

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart]

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman clarified that: the champagne is not free—but by God it seems that our friends in the House of Lords certainly like to quaff a good number of bottles of it over the course of a year.

It would be wrong and remiss of me, however, to claim that the House of Lords was totally undemocratic. That is not the case and I would not like to mislead this House in that respect. The Lords do have elections, when the earls, the dukes, the ladies, the lords and the barons—the hereditary peers of the realm—get together and have one of their now regular by-elections to decide which among their number should continue to rule over us. It must be the weirdest constituency in the world—the most privileged and aristocratic electorate to be found anywhere.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He is waxing lyrical in his diatribe against the House of Lords and many of his sentiments will be shared across the nation. Perhaps he is coming on to this in his speech, but does he agree about the need for a more democratised revising Chamber or would he dismiss it entirely?

[Pete Wishart]

I am not a unicameralist, believe it or not; a nation as complex and large as the United Kingdom needs a functioning supervisory Chamber. I will come on to suggest—I hope the hon. Gentleman bears with me—how we might make progress. This debate is about House of Lords reform, which I promise him I will come to.

What is unacceptable, however, and what the British people should put up with no longer, is that circus down in the other place, with the ridiculous spectacle of lords, ladies, deference, forelock-tugging and the rest of it. We need a properly equipped legislature designed for the 21st century—not one designed for the middle ages, something out of the 14th century. I will come to that and to the clear principles that I wish to establish.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Field]

There is a danger of that. In many ways, much as I disapprove of what happened in 1999, from the point of view of the Blair Administration, they did the right thing in taking the view that they should partly sort out the hereditary issue. Of course, the risk of any reform is that a little flurry of it is followed by decades of nothing else being done—historically, that is what has happened with the upper House—with those who wanted some reform saying, “Well, listen, we’ve been able to achieve something.”

It is depressing that the House of Lords has become ever more a creature of the Executive, while House of Lords reform has ground to a halt. The truth behind what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said is that it is down to the numbers game. The Whips can get business through the House of Commons, so we have the utter discourtesy of Government amendments being tabled in the House of Lords simply because it is known that the legislation will not get through without amendments, which are rubber-stamped when it comes back to the Commons. Instinctively, that feels wrong. Ultimately, it is in our hands in the House of Commons. We are now only 16 or 17 weeks away from a general election, and if the result is indeterminate, we parliamentarians will have the opportunity to stand up, have our say and make a difference, particularly if we are in the realms of a minority Government.

I must confess that, although I was happy to support the underlying principle of electing the House of Lords on Second Reading and in the programme motion of the House of Lords Reform Bill, I believed ultimately that, in many of its particulars, it was a shoddy, poorly drafted piece of legislation. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) said, if we try to work towards perfection, we will achieve very little. That is a great shame, because in many ways the British constitution has hitherto been one of the great success stories of modern politics. It has kept the country together—up to and beyond 18 September last year—united under a common Crown and common Parliament for more than 300 years. Not for us the coups, revolutions and counter-revolutions that have plagued much of the European continent over that period. So successful has the British constitution been that we Britons have often stopped thinking about it.

Until 15 or so years ago, no one lost much time worrying about constitutional niceties. We knew instinctively that, messy as it was, the British constitution worked well and worked for the whole of the British isles. The Blair Administration changed everything. They part-reformed the House of Lords by removing the independent hereditary element, but successive Governments since have created literally hundreds of new life peers. In response to the demand of the people of Scotland and Wales—a demand that I acknowledge the Conservatives were perhaps too slow to understand, and certainly to accept—devolved Parliaments and Assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were created. It requires little cynicism to see that many of those changes were designed for Labour’s political advantage, and that they have not necessarily been properly carried through elsewhere. That has created many problems, especially in England, the neglected land in all those constitutional changes. England is a nation proud and undivided, but many of its people increasingly demand equal treatment with the other nations of the UK. Since last September’s Scottish referendum—lost, in case there is a doubt about it, by 10.6%—some Tory strategists feel that the time is ripe to play the English card.

There is a deep and increasing disquiet among many in England at the effects of devolution, and the most serious problems are the imbalances left by the somewhat partisan settlement of the late 1990s. Those are easily stated. MPs from Edinburgh and Cardiff can vote on health and education policies that affect my constituents and Manchester constituents, and those of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), but not on health and education policies affecting their own constituents—but why? It does not seem just. Under the Barnett formula, residents of Edinburgh had £1,300 more spent on their public services last year than my constituents did. Again, that seems less than equitable. There was a disgraceful situation before Christmas in the Northern Ireland Assembly when the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Fein worked together to put a gun to the head of the British Government, to try to ensure there would be more money on the basis that they wanted a Barnett formula for Northern Ireland. If there is an indeterminate general election result, we may go down that route, with a bidding war on similar grounds in May and June.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

The hon. Gentleman said political parties had put a gun to the head of the British Government. I understand his use of the phrase, but while he might well say that about Sinn Fein, the Democratic Unionists were applying pressure.

[Mark Field]

I am sorry—the hon. Gentleman will recognise that I did not mean that literally. I recognise that, within the context of Northern Ireland and Ulster politics, it might be seen as a loaded phrase. He is aware of what I was getting at. There was a sense that a lot of political pressure was being brought to bear by the political Assembly of one of the parts of the United Kingdom that has had a full constitutional change, which would have affected my constituents to a large extent.

There are great dangers for the Conservatives in promoting the prospect of English votes for English laws. The UK constitution is full of anomalies. Attacking Scottish MPs in that way comes across as partisan and negative. Our mission should be to maintain and strengthen the Union. It is all too easy for a negative-sounding solution to the West Lothian question to be portrayed by our opponents—

Oral Answers to Questions

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

We have got out of a huge number of properties. We have reduced our office estate by the equivalent of 26 times the size of Buckingham palace, raising £1.4 billion in capital receipts and saving £625 million in running costs. Our One Public Estate programme, which is working very closely with a number of local authorities, is saving even more money and releasing property for the private sector to create jobs and growth by local government, central Government and indeed the wider public sector co-locating, which both saves money and is more convenient for the public.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Cost-effectiveness is of course something that all of us should aim for, but does the Minister agree that in trying to achieve that it would be better if best practice was shared right across the United Kingdom, including Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland?

[Mr Maude]

We try to promulgate good practice as best we can. We are, however, localists. We believe that the wider public sector—those who have responsibility and are accountable for the way in which the wider public sector operates—must be responsible for their own decisions. I have had very productive conversations with Ministers in the devolved Northern Ireland Government. There is much that we can learn from each other, and much that we can gain, as in the One Public Estate programme, from working together.

Business of the House

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I know that businesses, such as the brick manufacturers to which my hon. Friend refers, have benefited considerably from the recovery promoted by this coalition Government. The Budget’s support for their future competitiveness—not only in doubling the annual investment allowance, but in taking steps to ensure that energy-intensive industries can access competitive energy prices—is very important for such key manufacturing businesses.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Will the Leader of the House provide time for a debate on a thorny issue that I have raised in the House on numerous occasions? Tens of thousands of people in Northern Ireland who were born in the Irish Republic during the past 40 or 50 years are denied the right to get a British passport, although many people in Northern Ireland can avail themselves of an Irish passport on the same basis.

[Mr Lansley]

If I may, I will talk to my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Home Secretary about that matter. I cannot promise a debate at this stage, but I will endeavour to secure further replies for the hon. Gentleman.

Political Party Funding

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) on securing this debate.

The obligations of Members of Parliament are many. One of the additional onerous tasks on a small number of Members of Parliament, usually one in each party, is to be a treasurer. I say “onerous task” because I had the misfortune of agreeing to have that post foisted upon me many years ago. I have lived to regret it—I mean, never to regret it—ever since.

With that post, of course, comes part of the onerous task of ensuring that the political party’s accounts are supplied, maintained, updated and kept in order on a regular basis. That includes the money known as Short money. I say that because I have a number of years’ experience of knowing how rigorous and assiduous each political party has to be in giving its returns through the Electoral Commission on all income and expenditure, including the money known as Short money.

Each and every treasurer in each and every political party is in that position, with one exception, which is the political party so comprehensively alluded to by my hon. Friend: Sinn Fein. Members should by now know—and if they do not, they will know by the end of the debate—what the representative money was about when it was devised. If we cut through all the red tape and all the diplomatic doublespeak, representative money was about the Government here in Westminster attempting to roll out a green carpet in the House of Commons or a red carpet in the House of Lords—any kind of carpet—in the hope that, at some point in the future, Sinn Fein Members might say, “Okay, guv, the game’s up. We’ll enrol, we’ll sign up, we’ll take the pledge and we’ll come.”

As my hon. Friends the Members for South Antrim and for Upper Bann (David Simpson) have indicated, Sinn Fein has made it clear that it does not intend to change its position. Sinn Fein has made numerous claims that have been abandoned, of course, but it is fairly clear at the moment that it does not intend to abandon that position. Even if it does, what we are suggesting does not run counter to any position it might adopt. We are simply saying that a system should be put in place that represents a level playing field, and that is rigorous and exhaustive for every political party so that no one is exempt and no one can operate under a different set of rules.

Sinn Fein has for many years had an abstentionist policy, to which it is entitled. If Sinn Fein puts that policy before the electorate in a number of constituencies and Members are legitimately returned on that basis—however illegitimate all the other things that Sinn Fein stands for may be—it may legitimately say, “We were elected on an abstentionist ticket, and therefore we are not going to take our seats.” It should be spelled out in advance that, if a party does that, it will not receive money for which an integral part is attendance in the House to carry out duties here. If Sinn Fein wishes to forgo that money, that is a matter for the party.

We all know that representative money was an attempt to bring Sinn Fein in from the cold. We also know—I more than others—that the rules for income and expenditure for my political party, and all other political parties, are different from those for Sinn Fein, because of the rigorous nature of the rules on accountability for what representative money, the money known as Short money, may be spent on.

We should recall the scale of Sinn Fein’s income, including representative money. According to the most recent accounts submitted by Sinn Fein, the party had an income of £1.25 million in the last recorded year. To give an idea of the pro rata scale of that income, it would be similar to the Labour party having an income of some £35 million and spending about £33 million or £34 million. The difference is that the Labour party would not be spending more than £30 million on employing hundreds of people, many of whom used to kill people, which is what Sinn Fein does. Sinn Fein employs scores of “former combatants.” When Sinn Fein runs out of money to employ people on that basis, as has been the case in the Stormont Assembly, it sometimes tries to employ one of the “former combatants” as an adviser to a Minister until there is a furore and it has to sideline that person and bring in someone else. That is what Sinn Fein uses the money for.

Sinn Fein is a wealthy political party. Indeed, according to the most recent figures in the public domain, it is the wealthiest political party in Northern Ireland. No one should get caught up in some sort of false sympathy and think that such a measure might in some way impinge on Sinn Fein’s capacity to represent people.

Our contention is simple: Sinn Fein should abide by the rules in the same way as everyone else. Abiding by the rules is a concept that, up to 15 years ago, was not really something Sinn Fein could do very well. Sinn Fein did not abide by the rules. It thought, “Rules are for others, not for us.” Sinn Fein now has to abide by rules.

[Dr McCrea]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s point, but is it not true that the fact we are having this debate means that, up to this moment, Sinn Fein is not abiding by the rules? The Government are not making Sinn Fein abide by the rules by which every other political party has to abide. The inequality being accepted here runs contrary to many of the other decisions that the Government have taken; they are telling us that there must be equality.

[Mr Campbell]

That is why there must be a review of the rules of this House. We spent a long time with the Conservative party when it was in opposition before the last election, and with the Government since the election, reminding them of their commitment before 2010 on the need to ensure that people in Northern Ireland had a degree of assurance that moneys were being spent appropriately.

Every Member of this House, from every political party, knows that even perfectly legitimate expenditure and income is questioned and examined by our constituents. If that is the case for rigorously accounted income and expenditure, we can imagine what people are thinking about other moneys that are set aside separately for one party and for one party alone. There is rising resentment in Northern Ireland, and it is not confined to Northern Ireland, because on occasion I have had correspondence from residents in other parts of the UK who are equally annoyed and angry at the lack of accountability that exists for one political party.

Whenever this issue arises—other hon. Members will see this, too—we get correspondence from Sinn Fein Members saying that they will arrive here on sporadic visits to inform people and Members about the situation in Northern Ireland. We had a flying visit a couple of weeks ago by an abstentionist Member to inform other MPs about what was happening in Northern Ireland. Those visits normally coincide with the issue we are debating coming to the fore again. Why is that? It is not just a cynic who would be led to believe that when Sinn Fein Members see the prospect of this special money being reviewed and possibly taken from them, they hop on a plane from Belfast to London, and a hurriedly arranged meeting to update Members is on the cards. People are asked to come along and hear what is happening with the flag protest or the austerity measures. Members are perfectly entitled to ask questions about those issues and be updated on them, but not on the basis of Sinn Fein sporadically trying to justify the moneys it gets.

For that and a number of other reasons, I believe and hope that the Minister will respond by giving some assurance. We use the phrase “hard-pressed taxpayers” lightly, but people are suffering. They are examining each and every aspect of Government policy. They are looking at welfare reform and every pound they spend, as well as every pound the Government spend. When people see an unjustifiable and indefensible position such as this, they say, “The time has come to review, to change and to abandon the special status.”

[Dr McCrea]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Sinn Fein’s most recent ploy of holding little seminars and little meetings is in many ways an affront to democracy? Over the years, Sinn Fein Members have become used to concession and appeasement whenever they raise their voices, and they feel that, if they raise their voices in opposition to what has been suggested today, the Government will somehow back down again.

[Mr Campbell]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We know that some of the representative money can be used in a creative fashion. Sinn Fein are masters not only of financial creativity, but of a series of other creative measures. Anyone who denies that Sinn Fein is not just misusing this money, but using it for purposes for which it was never intended, is living in cloud cuckoo land. The time for this matter to be reviewed has long since passed. Time needs to be set aside for a review. Every Member who is elected to this House has to be treated on an identical basis. If we take our seats and make representation, whether it be good or bad, we are judged at the following election by our electorates in our constituencies. If we decline to take our seats and are elected on that basis, we should not get representative money for failing to represent our constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dodds]

I agree, and that absolutely backs up the points that I was making.

Sinn Fein says in a statement published this afternoon that this debate and the efforts of Members from different parties to raise these issues in the House are

“an attempt to disenfranchise our constituents, and it’s unacceptable”.

That is utterly preposterous. No attempt whatever is being made to disfranchise the constituents represented by Sinn Fein; it is Sinn Fein Members who are disfranchising their constituents by not representing them properly in the House to which they were elected. They are the ones who chose not to take their seats.

Sinn Fein Members could take their seats and have access to all parliamentary expenses and allowances on the same basis as everybody else, but they have chosen not to. Ultimately, if they are saying, “We are elected on the basis that we abstain, and on principle we are not going to take our seats,” one would think that the same principle would extend to not taking the money either, but obviously there are limits to principle when it comes to Sinn Fein.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Does my right hon. Friend share my sense of irony that one of Sinn Fein’s magic mantras is equality? That word is normally used in any debate in which they engage, yet they seem to want to shy away from this debate. That is what we are demanding: equality in how moneys are given out in the House and how they are reported and accounted for.

[Mr Dodds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Equality is one of their great mantras, and we hear it over and over again, but in this situation, they want a unique position, in which they have a special class of MP who can avail themselves of the moneys without taking their seats and enjoy an advantage over everybody else in the use of those moneys. It is a totally iniquitous position. This is not about disfranchising anyone in Northern Ireland. It is Sinn Fein who disfranchises its own constituents by not coming here or engaging in parliamentary work.

Sinn Fein has long since conceded the point of principle. Its members are prepared to take their place in the Northern Ireland Assembly, accept posts as Ministers there and enact legislation under the Queen. They are prepared to take their seats in Dail Eireann and to be part of structures that they once denounced as separatist, partitionist and illegitimate. They are prepared to take their seats in the European Parliament and denounce the European Union, but uniquely, they will not take their seats here, although they want all the financial advantages and privileges that go with it, and indeed special privileges and advantages. This is not about principle and it is not about disfranchising anyone. For us, it is about equality and fairness.

To put the latest figures on the record, in the year 2005-06, Sinn Fein Members received £35,163 in representative money. In 2006-07, they received £86,245; in 2007-08, £90,036; in 2008-09, £93,639; in 2009-10, £94,482; in 2010-11, £95,195; in 2011-12, £101,004. In the current year, 2012-13, they will get another £105,850. By the end of this financial year, they will have pocketed almost £750,000 since the introduction of the money in 2005, for activities not necessarily to do with parliamentary, constituency or any other type of work. They may have spent it on party political campaigning.

Taxpayers throughout the United Kingdom are entitled to be outraged at that abuse of public money. We have been told that it will be addressed, and it is now time for the Government to take action. We look forward to hearing when that action will happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) on securing this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Members for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), and the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on taking part.

The hon. Member for South Antrim said that there was an important debate going on elsewhere today, but the debate in this Chamber is equally important. He made his representations in a calm, focused manner. He encouraged me perhaps to speak for Conservative Members when they were in opposition and for a former Conservative Member who defected to the Labour party. I am not particularly well placed to do that. In the debate in the main Chamber, the Leader of the House was asked to comment on the Liberal Democrat manifesto, but felt unable to do so. I am not in a position to comment in any detail on what Conservative Members may have said in opposition.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the audit that applies to parties’ financial expenditure, as did the hon. Members for East Londonderry, for Upper Bann (David Simpson) and for Strangford. If hon. and right hon. Members have suggestions about how improvements could be made to that audit process, I am sure that the Government would be happy to ensure that they were passed on to the appropriate place.

[Mr Campbell]

So that the Minister is not under any misunderstanding, we are not asking for any adjustment to how the representative money is monitored and scrutinised. We want a level playing field, so that all Members and parties in this House are treated the same.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I understood the point that he and his colleagues made.

In an intervention, the hon. Member for South Antrim asked what meetings had taken place. I confirm that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, her predecessor and ministerial colleagues have discussed this issue on a number of occasions with representatives of the party, both in the House and in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

In passing, in his willingness to take on financial responsibilities for his party the hon. Member for East Londonderry is a braver man than me. In my experience, that normally involves people taking out their own cheque book to cover the difference, but I hope that is not so for him.

The right hon. Member for Belfast North mentioned that in a previous debate in this Chamber, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), then Deputy Leader of the House, gave certain undertakings. I hope that, at the end of the debate, the right hon. Gentleman will feel that we have made some progress. I should like to put some things on the record. It may be helpful for me briefly to set out the financial assistance available to opposition parties, specifically those whose Members have not taken their seats, without going over too much ground that has already been covered.

Short money for opposition parties in the House of Commons was introduced by resolution of the House in 1975 to assist opposition parties in carrying out their parliamentary business. Although that is not defined precisely, the money is used largely for the employment of research staff and support to the Whips’ Offices. In addition, Short money is used for funding for opposition parties’ travel and associated expenses, and funding for running costs of the office of the Leader of the Opposition. Levels of funding are calculated with reference to the number of seats won at the previous general election, with a sum for the number of votes gained by the party. I had wondered whether other parties from Northern Ireland might attend, to ask why they were not entitled to that funding. In the House of Lords, Cranborne money, the equivalent of Short money, was introduced in 1996. Hon. Members know that Short money is available only to parties whose Members have taken their seats, so Sinn Fein is not eligible.

In July 2005, the IRA formally announced an end to its armed campaign and undertook to pursue its aims by exclusively peaceful and democratic means. That paved the way for the provision of a new representative allowance payable to Members not taking the Oath, which is the subject of the bulk of this debate. On 8 February 2006, the House passed a resolution providing financial assistance to such Members towards expenses

“wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the employment of staff and related support to Members designated as that party’s spokesmen in relation to the party’s representative business.”—[Official Report, 8 February 2006; Vol. 442, c. 897.]

Expenditure is audited in the same way, whether it is Short money or representative money. The term “representative business” is not specifically defined, although it is understood to include expenditure on press, publicity and related purposes. The sums provided are calculated on a similar basis to, and can be seen as an equivalent of, Short money. The right hon. Member for Belfast North set out the expenditure incurred by Sinn Fein.

In the context of this debate, it is important to note that both this House and the political situation in the Northern Ireland have changed significantly since the debates of 2001 and 2006. I know that all hon. Members would acknowledge that. In Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein Members play a full role in the Assembly. Despite attempts by dissidents to undermine the peace process, Northern Ireland’s devolution settlement has set it on a political path. Sinn Fein has accepted the consent principle set out in the Belfast agreement, which states that all parties

“recognise the legitimacy whatever choice is freely exercised by a majority of the people of Northern Ireland with regard to its status”,

and that

“it would be wrong to make any change in the status of Northern Ireland save with the consent of a majority of its people”.

It is true that Sinn Fein is elected on an abstentionist platform, so the electorate are well aware of its stance on taking seats and vote for it anyway. Nevertheless, the Government’s view, as the Prime Minister said in January 2011, is that

“we should be aiming for all Members who are elected to take their seats in this House.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 290.]

It is the Government’s view that the issue of representative money for parties that do not take the Oath is primarily a matter for the House itself to resolve.

In 2001 and 2006, the previous Government introduced motions to facilitate decision and debate. In 2010, this Government introduced proposals from the Wright Committee to establish a Backbench Business Committee, giving Back-Bench Members direct access to the scheduling of business on the Floor of the House. When my predecessor as Deputy Leader of the House responded to a debate on this issue in June 2010, which was mentioned earlier, the Backbench Business Committee was in its infancy, having elected its Chair only the previous week and not having met to schedule a debate. It was right then that the Government decided that at such an early stage it was not appropriate to ask the House to come to a swift resolution. The Backbench Business Committee is now an established, successful part of the House of Commons and has scheduled debates on a wide range of issues that might otherwise not have come to the Floor of the House.

The hon. Member for South Antrim may wish to consider approaching the Backbench Business Committee to demonstrate that the House should come to a view on this issue, on which there may well be a range of opinions that would benefit from being debated and, if appropriate, voted on.

Parliamentary Allowances and Short Money

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I want to focus attention on something that I believe represent one of the greatest errors of the previous Government: the special treatment that has been given to abstentionist Members of Parliament that enables them to claim Westminster allowances and the Short money that is supposed to be used for the purposes of parliamentary activities.

There is only one elected party in the House that refuses to take its seats, so that policy is not driven by a need to address a general problem. The problem is one single party seeking and getting preferential treatment. There is now a special status of MP, and the principle that the same is expected of and awarded to all Members of the House equally has been abandoned. A number of us have been absolutely consistent on the issue. We opposed the original decision to grant these allowances; we supported the attempts by the then Conservative Opposition to overturn them; and we believe that now is an opportune moment—in a new Parliament, with new politics and with the public concern that rightly exists about the wastefulness of public expenditure, value for money and so on—to turn our attention once again to the issue, particularly given the promises made by senior members of the Conservative party in the run-up to the election.

The issue arose in 1997 and in 2001, with the respective Speakers of the House at those times ruling that Sinn Fein should not be granted allowances. On 14 May 1997, the then Speaker, Betty Boothroyd, said:

“those who choose not to take their seats should not have access to the many benefits and facilities that are now available in the House without also taking up their responsibilities as Members.”—[Official Report, 14 May 1997; Vol. 294, c. 35.]

Sinn Fein challenged that ruling in the courts. Indeed, it took the case to the European Court of Human Rights, no less, and was unsuccessful both in the domestic courts and in Europe, which demonstrated that the decision was perfectly just and correct. Given the courts’ dismissal of the various legal challenges, it is spurious to defend the present situation by saying that it recognises of the rights of a section of the electorate.

In 2001, the then Labour Government presented a motion to reverse the decision of the Speaker, although that motion did not apply to Short money. It is now worth reminding those who sit on the Government Benches what they said while they were in opposition. I exclude from that the Liberal Democrats, including the Deputy Leader of the House, who will respond to the debate, because I understand that they abstained or did not take a particular position one way or another throughout the discussion of the issue.

I hope that Conservative Members who are now in government will clearly spell out the opposition to the position that was evinced during the Conservatives’ days in opposition. One Conservative spokesman—Quentin Davies, the then shadow Secretary of State—denounced the proposal when it was first introduced, saying that it involved

“more unreciprocated concessions to Sinn Fein-IRA”

and

“treating the rules of the House of Commons as the currency for such concessions.”

The argument that Sinn Fein received comparable allowances in the Northern Ireland Assembly was advanced as a justification, but the then shadow Secretary of State said rightly:

“There is in fact no comparison at all between the position in Stormont and that in the House, because Sinn Fein-IRA have agreed to take their seats in the Assembly at Stormont and in the Executive there”.—[Official Report, 18 December 2001; Vol. 377, c. 160-162.]

When an equivalent to Short money was provided to Sinn Fein, such opposition in principle was restated by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—now Home Secretary—when she said:

“The issue before us is not about the Northern Ireland peace process or about the resumption of the Assembly; it is about the role of Members of parliament, what it means to sit in the House and the nature of the job of being an elected representative of this place. It is primarily on that basis that we oppose the action that the Government are seeking to take and will be voting against the motions.”—[Official Report, 8 February 2006; Vol. 442, c. 912.]

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Is not the patent absurdity of this that all of us, as Members of the House, receive expenditure for staying in London when we attend Parliament, yet there are MPs who do not attend Parliament but still obtain the expenses and the allowances?

[Mr Dodds]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the coverage of the expenses scandal, it was revealed that Sinn Fein Members were claiming nearly £500,000 in accommodation costs for being in London primarily on parliamentary duties although they do not even attend the House. I can describe the situation no more eloquently then the current Secretary of State who, in light of that particular point, said in the Daily Mail on 8 April 2009:

“It is completely unacceptable for Sinn Fein representatives, who won’t even sit in Parliament, to claim hundreds of thousands at the taxpayers’ expense.”