Standing Orders (Public Business)

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The point I am making is that my constituents depend on services that are based in England and they pay taxes to the Exchequer that also funds services in Belfast. The key issue is that I, as the MP representing my constituents, should have the right to walk through that door and speak on equal terms with Scottish Members, English Members, Welsh Members and indeed Northern Ireland Members.

Under the proposals before us, the Speaker will be required to certify a Bill. He will do so in a way that will make it impossible for me to speak in Committee because the Bill could be

“within the legislative competence of the National Assembly for Wales”.

Health is a Welsh Assembly competence, but my constituents use and depend on English health services, one third of my constituents were born in England and hospital maternity services are there for them. Am I to have that role no longer in this House? Am I supposed to be a second-class citizen? As I suggested in my intervention, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who has fought four elections in or near my constituency, lost every one and now sits in the other place, will have the same right as every Member—apart from myself and Scottish and Northern Ireland MPs—to speak on those matters. Lord Roberts of Llandudno, who has lost five elections in our area will have the same right to speak as other Members, but not me. I have been sent here six times by my constituents, and not once have I been asked to distinguish between the equality of Members of Parliament in this House.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I represent an English seat, and, like my right hon. Friend, I can tell the House that none of my constituents has ever raised this issue with me on the doorstep, or said that they wanted any change. My right hon. Friend and other Members have drawn attention to the wide-ranging and significant constitutional implications of this measure. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is an utter disgrace that it is being considered here for only three and a half hours, with no pre-legislative scrutiny and no constitutional consideration?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman]

I appreciate that intervention and will come on to a similar point shortly.

[Helen Goodman]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kirsty Blackman]

Not right now.

I want to talk about the only good thing that has come out of the English votes for English laws process: the fact that the estimates process has been highlighted. It has been brought to the front and centre, and I understand that the Procedure Committee is going to be looking at how the estimates process works. That is fantastic; I am looking forward to hearing Treasury representatives appearing before various Committees in this House and explaining how it will make the estimates process more transparent and allow people to be involved in setting the budget, rather than keeping it hidden in the background. That will be excellent for the democracy of this House, and is the only good thing to come out of this.

There is a complete lack of understanding on the Government Benches about the devolution settlement and process for Scotland and how it works. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) said, there are powers that are reserved and the rest of the powers are decided by the Scottish Parliament. That is quite different from what is being decided here now.

The other thing that is not understood—or is being wilfully misunderstood, perhaps—by those on the Government Benches is the way funding works in the UK. This place decides how much money goes to Scotland.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I absolutely agree. This is more evidence that the Conservative party is misunderstanding the way the funding settlement works. We cannot describe this as devolution for England. What will happen is that the English MPs will have discussions in Committee and will have a veto over things that have an effect on the Scottish finances. That is how this devolution works. If the Conservatives decide to restructure the way the finances in this place work—rather than just going to a full English Parliament, which we would support—and have English MPs take decisions on things that do not have a financial impact on Scotland, I am absolutely on board with that. I think that is a fantastic idea. In fact I would like to see a full federal system or independence for Scotland.

I do not understand what the Leader of the House is trying to do with this measure. It was put into the Conservatives’ manifesto, they won the election and now they do not know how to proceed. They are stuck with the proposal because it was in the manifesto and they have to support it. The Leader of the House has stood before various Committees of this House and before this House today and tried to say to the Scottish MPs, “This is a minor thing; this is a really small thing”, but he is trying to say to his own Back-Bench MPs, “This is a really big thing; this is going to solve all our problems.” That does not make sense; the two things cannot be joined together. It is either one thing or the other.

[Helen Goodman]

Given that this debate is only three and a half hours long and is of such significance, I wonder why the Leader of the House cannot even sit through it.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I urge the House not to take this step at all, but in the event that it does, Standing Orders are not the way to go. If the Government are going to take such a step, they need a proper process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Reynolds]

My hon. Friend makes a reasonable point, and it is one that Conservative Members need to hear. Having listened to the speeches so far, I wonder how many Conservative MPs spent a substantial amount of time in Scotland during the referendum campaign. They seem to have a cavalier attitude to these issues.

We are in a constitutional mess at the moment—there is no doubt about that—but the worst thing we could do would be to make that mess even worse by adopting ill-thought-through proposals that have not been properly considered and that would probably create an even bigger problem. There are many complicated issues that need to be considered. First, the proposals lack clarity. They are not easy to understand, and I can envisage a situation in which, even after a vote, we will not really know what has happened until we get the figures through.

Furthermore, the proposals will create two tiers of MPs, and it is pointless to pretend otherwise. We also need to consider the situations in Wales and in Scotland. I wonder how many Conservative MPs really appreciate just how slender a thread the Union is hanging by. We must also consider the role of the Lords and the question of English devolution to areas such as mine in Greater Manchester. Then there is the question of an English Parliament. Should this place be the English Parliament on some days but not on others? There is also the question of a possible federation in the UK.

Most of all, we need to consider the voting system for this place. The Labour party has got itself into a difficult position on that. We look at the electoral geography and we wonder how we can achieve an equitable solution that would give us the chance of a Labour Government now and again. The situation will get even worse if the newly gerrymandered constituencies are brought into being.

A change of this sort must be achieved through consensus and by convention. That is how we have done everything under our unwritten constitution in the past. I am afraid that to go down this route with such an obvious partisan advantage for one party, when only that party supports the change, is reckless and cavalier.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case and pointing out all the complications. Does he not agree that using this device of Standing Orders, which means that the other place has no possibility of discussing and voting on it, and giving us only an afternoon’s debate is an utter disgrace? Does he not think that it amounts to a coup?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I think that it is a disgrace, and I think that any fair-minded Conservative MP would say that.

Let me pose this question: by what measure can the new Standing Orders be revoked? We can clearly say that this House would have no authority to revoke the Scottish Parliament unless we followed a similar procedure to the one by which it was created. A referendum created the Scottish Parliament. I believe that we would at the very least need to have a referendum to decide whether it should cease to exist.

What is the process by which these Standing Orders could be changed? For instance, could a simple majority of the whole House, including Scottish and Welsh MPs, revoke the Standing Orders to get a result? Conservative MPs are nodding their heads. Could they not see that such an event might inadvertently trigger a constitutional crisis the like of which we have not seen for 100 years? These things have to be thought through, and there must be support and consensus for them. Such a process can be hard and slow, but look how long it took to get the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly. That is the kind of process that needs to be followed.

Frankly, what we are doing today, with a debate of only three and a half hours, is not good enough. As someone who is genuinely and honestly sympathetic to the cause of needing to look again at how we do these things in the House and, frankly, who is fairly convinced by the core argument behind it, I cannot in any way vote for the motion. It is imperative for Conservative MPs to understand that they are risking the integrity of this country. Quite frankly, I am astonished at the recklessness they are showing today.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Today’s debate is not about devolving power to England or about reclassifying some MPs; it is about restoring the balance to give England a strong voice again on English matters, and in turn to strengthen the Union. For too long, we have suffered from a halfway attempt at devolution. We must rectify that, especially as we are honouring the promises we made to deliver the Smith commission report and to devolve greater powers down to all parts of the United Kingdom.

[Helen Goodman]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I hope it is a genuine point of order.

[Helen Goodman]

I seek your guidance, Mr Speaker. Obviously, the process being followed this afternoon is highly controversial. The hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) referred to something called “the Chequers meeting”. Most Opposition Members do not know what that was or whether it was a formal part of the process. I seek your guidance on how we might find out what the Chequers process was?

[Mr Speaker]

The answer is by persistent questioning of those who might be in the know, among whose number the Chair is not included.