Sittings of the House

Helen Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

I am afraid I will not take any more interventions, or I shall suffer the injunction of Mr Speaker.

I remind the House of what was said at the time in favour of those changes. We were told that the changes to the hours

“would bring us closer to the people”.

Extravagant claims have been made about changing the hours, which have all turned to dust.

I was glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford did not push the family-friendly argument, as that was the argument that was made before and, as we have now accepted, there is no single rule about what suits families. As it happens, my family were brought up in London even though my constituency is a distance away. I did my best, like every other Member of this House, to meet my family obligations, including chairing the governing body of our children’s inner-London comprehensive. The old hours happened to suit that, because I could go and come back. The thing that made the biggest difference to family-friendly hours was nothing to do with the formal hours at which we finish; it was pairing. I was able to pair with Conservative colleagues who also had small children. If we wish to get back to sensible arrangements that take account of individual circumstances, we must put pressure on the Patronage Secretary and our own Whips to reintroduce a pairing system. A natural equilibrium results from a pairing system, as those like me, old stagers who do not have families to go back to, give way to those who do have families to go back to.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

I will not, if the hon. Lady will excuse me.

Finally, the reason we had to change back, as the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) pointed out, was that there was a clash with the meeting of Committees and with the meetings of Government in Cabinet and Cabinet Committees. I tell my hon. Friends that I do not wish us to stay in opposition as a perpetual state; I regard it as temporary. I wish to be on the Government Benches. The change would also be disruptive, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition would find, to the work of the Opposition. The shadow Cabinet meets on a Tuesday morning and will find that all sorts of meetings cannot happen.

The hon. Gentleman who is the Member for Slough—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

We all work long hours in this place, and however we jig them that will remain the position. However, we should hesitate a little before complaining about the hours that we work. They are long, and most of us have weekend duties and will continue to do so, but other people do as well. We are not going to get a great deal of public sympathy if we go round our constituency complaining that our hours are long and all the rest of it. The obvious reaction will be: “If it’s so terrible, why do you stand for re-election?” We have to be a little careful about complaining. If there are lazy Members in the House, which I very much doubt—I do not know how they would get away with it—there must be very few indeed. All of us, wherever we sit in the Chamber, work long hours to carry out our duties here and in the constituency.

I am in favour of the present arrangements for Monday to Friday. As for Thursdays, I am not particularly concerned. I was and still am a member of the Home Affairs Committee, and when the House met at 11.30 on Tuesdays there was a clash. We had to decide where we should be. We had to decide whether to carry on in the Committee because we had further business, or come to the Chamber to participate in oral questions. There are bound to be strong feelings about the time we should finish, particularly on a Tuesday, but for the life of me I cannot see any advantage for the great majority of Members whose constituencies are hundreds of miles away in stopping at 7 o’clock.

The main reason I am on my feet is September sittings, which I am very pleased about. I do not often praise the Government, but I certainly praise them and my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) for supporting our sitting in September. I long campaigned for that in the 1980s and 1990s, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) may remember, because I simply could not understand why on earth we should break up for 10 weeks. As far as Governments are concerned, it is a tremendous advantage, because there are no oral questions, no statements and no points of order—it is almost a paradise for them.

Members talk about their constituency duties, such as visiting schools, holding surgeries and all the rest of it, and yes, they are very important, but we should bear it in mind that, apart from anything else, our job first and foremost is to be here holding the Executive to account. That is the first priority. If we break up for a continuous 10-week period, we are not doing our job. There might come a time when it is possible to rejig the conferences in such a way that we do not have to break up again after them, but in the mean time, as the Procedure Committee reported, there is apparently no opportunity for the parties to change the conference season. The September sittings are very important. I know that we are not conditioned by the media, but we can imagine what the press reaction would be: “MPs take 10-week holiday.” We call it a recess, but has anyone heard that word outside the Westminster village? The word that is bound to be used is “holiday”.

[Mrs Grant]

I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman and know that he has a lot of experience in this place, but does he not accept that it is also very important for Members to have some semblance of a family life, and not just younger Members with child care responsibilities but older Members who now face caring for elderly parents?

[Mr Winnick]

Of course. We all have responsibilities in our political and private lives. We are all accountable to someone or other, and that is very important, but with the greatest respect, I do not think that the hon. Lady’s point has a great deal of relevance to September sittings. The last time there was a vote on September sittings we lost it. I hope that this time we will win it, and win it with a decisive majority.

--- Later in debate ---

[Natascha Engel]

I do not really take that point. If the problem is late-night sitting, people should get up later. The sitting hours are not the problem. The hon. Lady mentioned the efficiency and effectiveness of an MP’s work. The sitting hours are not the issue. The issue is what we do when we are here and what we do in our constituencies.

[Mrs Grant]

rose—

[Natascha Engel]

I will give way very briefly and then stop.

[Mrs Grant]

Does the hon. Lady not accept that the role of an MP and the hours we spend here are inextricably linked?

[Natascha Engel]

I do not. What I do accept is that there is a job of work that MPs do in Parliament and a different job of work that we do in our constituencies. How we manage that is down to us. We have to make sure that everybody can manage to work around our sitting hours. Although what we have at the moment may not work perfectly for everyone, I think it works for everyone. I will leave it at that.