Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 3, page 1, line 2, leave out ‘publishing draft’ and insert ‘presenting’.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 6, page 1, leave out lines 7 to 10 and insert

‘“legislation” means primary legislation, secondary legislation or amendments to primary legislation’.

Amendment 8, page 1, line 16, leave out ‘draft’.

Amendment 14, title, line 1, leave out

‘preparing draft legislation for publication’

and insert ‘presenting legislation’.

[Helen Goodman]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this Bill and to the amendments standing in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty). The long list of amendments that we have tabled demonstrates that this is an extremely badly drafted piece of legislation. As I am sure Government Members know, Her Majesty’s Opposition oppose the Bill. It is ill-conceived, badly drafted and full of technical problems, and we do not accept its underlying principles. For a start, it does not make sense to look at draft legislation only. Most Bills do not appear in draft at all, so this would catch only a tiny number of the Bills that the House considers.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The hon. Lady and her hon. Friend tabled 14 amendments and one new clause, only four of which have been selected for debate. Does that not suggest that her amendments and new clause were badly drafted as well?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has been here long enough to know that we do not discuss the selection of amendments.

[Helen Goodman]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I would like to point out some of the problems with what has been suggested by the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), whose Bill this is. Every piece of legislation has a territorial extent clause at its end. Let us consider the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which is currently in Committee. The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) has been chairing some of its sittings, so he knows what I am talking about. Clause 117 states that the Bill, as a whole, applies to England and Wales, and then explains which clauses apply more widely. There is no lack of clarity about the legal status of Bills before the House.

Clearly, the hon. Lady’s underlying concern is that people are taking views on legislation that affects parts of the United Kingdom beyond those in which their constituencies are located. If that is her concern, she should have presented a Bill making that case. However, she has presented a different and flawed Bill.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill undermines the basic principle that all Members are equal?

[Helen Goodman]

Of course, my hon. Friend is absolutely correct.

[Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the procedure for Scottish Bills, as set out in Standing Order 97, requires the Speaker to issue a certificate stating that a measure is predominantly Scottish, after which it can go to the Grand Committee. It would be possible to do the same for England. Surely it would be worth printing a complex Bill in draft—so that it can be published and people can look at it—because, if there were territorial issues on the margins, it would provide an opportunity to consider them fully before the Speaker issued his certificate. Is the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) not a valuable addition to how we have dealt with such matter traditionally?

[Helen Goodman]

As the hon. Gentleman says, arrangements are in place for legislation that takes effect predominantly in Scotland. However, the Government seem to be rushing legislation through so fast that it is quite possible that the Speaker and his offices might not have time to take all these complex matters into account. That is a problem with the way this Government are ramming through legislation on the NHS and, if I might say so, this Legal Aid—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We are meant to be discussing the amendments, but we are getting drawn elsewhere by certain Members. I am sure that, with the hon. Lady’s experience, we can stick to the amendments.

[Helen Goodman]

I stand corrected. I am sorry, I was seduced by the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald).

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

On the issues raised by the amendment, my hon. Friend said a minute ago that she suspected that the real motivation behind the Bill was not just to specify whether a Bill applied to England, Scotland or Northern Ireland only, but to lead to a situation where certain MPs could not vote on those Bills. If she has any doubt about that, the BBC reported yesterday that the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin)

“hoped that this would allow it to become accepted practice that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs would not vote on England-only bills.”

If that is what she really wants, would it not be better to have a Bill to that effect for us to discuss and debate, rather than one that tries to introduce such a measure through the back door?

[Helen Goodman]

That is exactly right. This is a campaigning Bill; it is not a serious Bill. The hon. Lady cannot possibly expect the House to support this ill-conceived Bill, which would not even do what she wants.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

So in reality these amendments are not really important in the hon. Lady’s estimation; she is simply intent on wrecking this Bill by any means possible. That is the reality, is it not?

[Helen Goodman]

I am not intent on wrecking the Bill; I am intent on opposing it, which is not quite the same thing.

[Mr Leigh]

Perhaps I used the wrong words. What the hon. Lady is determined to do is stop this Bill making any further progress. That is the reality and she might as well be honest about it.

[Helen Goodman]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady is being tempted all the time. She must not give in to that temptation. Let us stick to the amendments.

[Helen Goodman]

Let me turn to the parts of the Bill that relate to the financial implications, which we also looked at in—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady must not make a Second Reading speech. Let us deal with the amendments that are before us.

[Helen Goodman]

One of the problems with looking at draft legislation rather than legislation in its final form is that it is not possible at that stage to say what the financial implications across the United Kingdom might be. The Government would be forced not simply to identify the territorial extent of a Bill, as they do currently, but to look at the differential impact of clauses that apply across the United Kingdom. For example, some legislation could be applicable throughout the UK but have a greater effect in some places than in others. Let us take social security as an example. If unemployment is higher in Wales than in England and changes are made to the rate of jobseeker’s allowance, the impact in Wales will obviously be different from the impact in England. I am sure that that is not what the hon. Lady intends.

[Oliver Heald]

But social security is a UK-wide competence. It is nothing to do with just England, Wales or Scotland; it applies all over the country.

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman makes my exact point, but unfortunately that is not the way the Bill is drafted. That is one of its faults.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

That is a very interesting point, but what exactly does it have to do with the amendments?

[Helen Goodman]

What I am trying to do is demonstrate that the Bill is not well drafted, and the amendments that we have tabled do just that. I fear that the object of this Bill is really a political object—that what the hon. Member for West Worcestershire is doing is disingenuous and that her concerns are different from those that she has set out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is for the Chair to decide, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. I would point out that I am allowing a little bit of latitude and, in fairness, the hon. Lady has been brought back to the point, to which, in general, she is sticking at the moment. I will decide from the Chair how far we go.

[Helen Goodman]

I do not wish to delay the House any further on these technical amendments. I think I have made my point perfectly clear. I do not intend to push the amendments to a vote, but I hope that I have demonstrated a small number of the problems with this Bill.

[Oliver Heald]

Let me start by saying that my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) has done the House a service by introducing the Bill. It is a modest measure, but it provides something useful for the House, if the commission proposed by the Minister, which I also welcome, decides that we need a procedure for England similar to Standing Order No. 97, which sets out the Scottish procedure. That Standing Order says that when a piece of legislation is first printed, the Speaker can issue a certificate saying that it is a Scottish Bill. In those circumstances it is dealt with by the Scottish Grand Committee, which means that Scottish Members decide what happens in Scotland. I personally have always felt, as has my party, that England should have a similar opportunity, and the details of how that might be achieved have been discussed and argued over for many years.

What my hon. Friend is suggesting will help in the difficult process of deciding whether a Bill is predominantly Scottish or, in this case, English. The difficulty that the Speaker has always had to contend with is that, under Standing Order No. 97(1)(a), he can provide a certificate, and that

“it shall not be withheld by reason only that the bill...makes minor consequential amendments of enactments which extend to England and Wales”.

So it is possible for a Bill that is predominantly about Scotland but has some implications for England and Wales to be dealt with under the Scottish procedure. My hon. Friend is proposing that draft legislation would contain a certificate from the Secretary of State explaining the territorial extent of its legal and financial effects on the various parts of the UK. That would be useful in cases that were on the margin.

[Helen Goodman]

But can the hon. Gentleman not see that the territorial extent is already in a Bill, and that the financial implications are set out in the impact assessment that is published alongside it?

[Oliver Heald]

The mistake in the hon. Lady’s amendments is that they would not give the Speaker any opportunity to present his certificate. She is proposing that the Secretary of State’s explanation would be provided when the legislation was presented, rather than when it was first printed, which would give the Speaker no time to do his work. These are therefore wrecking amendments.

[Helen Goodman]

The issue is the speed with which this Government are putting through legislation, and their failure to leave adequate time between First and Second Readings, and between Second Reading and the Committee stage. If they were to give Bills adequate time, that would give the Speaker the time for which the hon. Gentleman calls.

[Oliver Heald]

I completely disagree. The hon. Lady would give the Speaker no time at all. Under Standing Order No. 97, the Speaker has the time between the Bill first being printed and its presentation in which to decide whether or not to provide his certificate. Her proposals would provide no such time. The Bill would simply be presented; the helpful information from the Secretary of State would not be given to the Speaker before that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I must stay in order while answering that question, Mr Deputy Speaker. I referred to the “so-called” West Lothian question because it is not simply about West Lothian; it applies also to west Belfast, west Cardiff and even west London, in that certain matters relating to Greater London have been devolved to the London assembly. I accept that the hon. Gentleman is asking a reasonable question, but the Bill does not provide an appropriate way of dealing with it.

The Bill, rather than creating constitutional symmetry that would apply beautifully to all parts of the UK, would seriously affect the way in which the House operates and the ability of all Members to participate in debates. This question deserves an answer. I represent a Scottish constituency, and I am interested in how these issues apply to the UK as a whole, but if Members in England really feel strongly about this, I would argue again that the answer involves another measure, rather than creating two kinds of Member in this House.

[Helen Goodman]

Does my hon. Friend agree that another technical defect—I hope the amendments made this clear, but perhaps they did not—is that the hon. Lady has not done with her own Bill what she is suggesting that Ministers should do with every Bill? There is no explanation of how her Bill would apply in each of the jurisdictions, or of what financial burdens it would create. She cannot do that for this tiny Bill, yet she intends to impose a massive bureaucratic burden, which is something that I thought the Government were opposed to.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I have sympathy with the hon. Member for West Worcestershire, given the difficulties involved in introducing a private Member’s Bill; I introduced three over the years, having been lucky enough to come up in the draw. We are obviously in a different position from Governments in the level of support available and the amount of information that we can put before the House. I do not want to criticise her too much, but it would have been helpful if she had provided a background paper to support the Bill, rather than simply relying on the material supplied by the House of Commons Library. I apologise if she did produce such a paper and I have not seen it.

In regard to amendment 6, there are a number of important issues about how the Bill would work. A great many pieces of legislation that pass through the House simply cannot be categorised as English-only, Scottish-only, Welsh-only or Northern Irish-only Bills. A large number of Bills overlap in various ways. Most Bills on transport affect transport in England but are likely to have knock-on effects on other parts of the UK. We debated the Health and Social Care Bill this week and although it primarily covers England and Wales, the provisions on abortion would have applied to the United Kingdom. Every measure that has spending implications will have consequential effects on every part of the UK because of the Barnett formula.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman is leaping into solution space, but he is right. I agreed with one thing he said in an exchange with my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), when he referred to the so-called West Lothian question. That was helpful as the West Lothian question is called that because it was raised by the then Member for West Lothian, but we are really talking about how we deal with legislating for England in a country that has devolution. That is not very catchy, and if any Members can think of a more catchy way of describing the West Lothian question that encapsulates its nature in a way that will resonate with people, they could perhaps suggest it to me.

Let me give one more straightforward example of an extent clause. It was in a Bill for which I was responsible, which is now an Act of Parliament: the well-supported Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. The Act applied for the most part throughout the United Kingdom, with a limited exception. Part of schedule 3 extended only to Great Britain and one part extended only to Northern Ireland as a result of the different electoral arrangements. It had a very short extent section but meant that Members were very clear about where it had effect.

I hope I have set out for the House why we do not support the amendments. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland has already said that she will not press them to a vote, but this has been a helpful debate to flesh out some of the concerns about this approach. She has done the House a service through her amendments, as has my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire by allowing the House to debate these important matters.

[Helen Goodman]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Third Reading

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct; there has been a substantial body of work looking at exactly how to resolve this question without creating the completely impossible situation of having two classes of MP.

[Helen Goodman]

An interesting point is developing here. I wonder whether the hon. Lady is considering not voting on the Government’s Scotland Bill, in line with what she is saying, and whether the Government are looking to have the support of a majority of Scottish Members for the Scotland Bill before it receives Royal Assent.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Lady points out precisely why it is so important to resolve in this Parliament some of those complex constitutional issues. There will be others, I am sure, who will refer to the problems of the other House and the fact that there is draft legislation currently in this place about reforms to that House. There might be consequences for that piece of legislation as well.