Business of the House
Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
Forms and tariffs are completely different things. I am so sorry that the Opposition are confused, after so many years of debate on this subject, between a form and a tariff. No doubt we can provide specialist expertise to explain the difference.
The interruption of the Queen’s Speech debate has a wonderful historical tradition. We always take the First Reading of the Outlawries Bill immediately after the Queen’s Speech as a sign that the House is allowed to debate what it chooses and is not there to oblige the Crown. Perhaps more relevantly in these circumstances, there is the deadline of 31 October. We on the Government Benches are trying to meet that deadline by getting the deal through. The House has voted for that deal, but it seems to will the end but currently not the means.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Given everything else, the Government must clearly have an understanding of the limit beyond which it will be not be possible to go with the Bill in respect of leaving the EU by 31 October and completing its progress. In the light of that, has my right hon. Friend kept in reserve the consideration that it may be possible for the House to sit through the weekend if necessary, and, if necessary, to sit around the clock to achieve whatever is required to meet that deadline of the 31st?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The problem—the constraint—is, of course, the fact that this is a bicameral legislature. However long we sat, the House of Lords would also have to sit, and the deadline is Thursday week. Even if we were to sit around the clock, having the hours that we were to have had today, given the time required for the House of Lords, there would still be very little time left; and after people have complained that the time is insufficient, it might be peculiar if they were then to say that an even shorter time was sufficient. I welcome the intent of my right hon. Friend’s question, but I do not think that that will work.
Business of the House
Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
There are, of course, Greek antecedents of the word “archaic”—a concept and fact with which the Leader of the House himself will be closely familiar. However, I think I can say, without fear of contradiction and for the avoidance of doubt, that the word “archaic” as it is now spelt originated in the 19th century, and in France. By the standards of the Leader of the House, it is distressingly modern and also—I say this simply as a matter of fact—of foreign origin. He will have his own views about that matter and others.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I start by welcoming my hon. Friend—I do not think he is yet “right hon.”—to his post. I think he will bring modulated and very moderate tones to these debates. One thing is for certain: having a seat in business questions will now be an absolute must. I welcome my hon. Friend in that regard.
Nothing can be done in this Session, but I want to raise a particular issue. With Lord McColl, I am a co-sponsor of a Bill to change the process relating to modern-day slavery. I ask and urge my hon. Friend to press his colleagues at the Home Office, who have to date been utterly mealy-mouthed about the changes necessary to give victims of modern-day slavery the opportunity to come forward without fearing arrest and incarceration. Will he press his colleagues at the Home Office to urgently bring forward the Bill’s provisions as soon as possible, to improve the quality of the lives of those who suffer most? [Interruption.]
Mr Rees-Mogg
As I rise, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, has arrived to sit next to me. She is a very distinguished predecessor of mine, whom I congratulate on her promotion and return from the Back Benches.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) is absolutely right about modern-day slavery. It would be opportune to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the former Prime Minister, for all the work that she did on modern-day slavery—the terrible and hidden curse that it is. I share his view that everything should be done to stop it. The Home Office should move in that direction and people should not fear criminal prosecution if they have been held as modern-day slaves. That would clearly be desperately unfair.
Business of the House
Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
I fear that the hon. Gentleman might be insulting me somewhat as a keen Brexiteer. He is not being consistent, because he usually likes to stand there and insult the other place, talking about how the Lords should be gone, abolished and reduced, yet now, because they are giving him the answer he wants, he is praising them. That is not consistent. It is rather like his approach to referendums: he ignores those he does not like and insists on upholding those he does.
The hon. Gentleman asks whether the motion relating to the Bill currently in the other place would take precedence tomorrow over other business. I sincerely expect not. He asks about the rest of the week. He knows that I have already announced that business, and I have also made it clear that whether we need to sit on Friday will be a decision to make once we see the results of the European Council. I will always seek to give the House as much notice as possible.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that at all stages we will continue to oppose the Bill and that the Government oppose any amendments in process? Does she not agree that there is a distinct irony in that the other place has spent what is now two days debating the Bill while we ended up with a tiny amount of time and did not even debate Report or Third Reading? That is a travesty for the Chamber that is meant to be the democratic Chamber, with the other one the unelected Chamber.
Andrea Leadsom
My right hon. Friend is exactly right that it should be for this House to make key decisions, yet here we have the unelected House making play with the Bill, which is absolutely unconventional for the procedures of this Parliament. Despite the Government’s grave misgivings about this legislation, for all the reasons we set out in the debate, we will not prevent the Bill being presented for Royal Assent, should it pass both Houses.
It is a well-established convention that the Government have the ability to seek and negotiate international agreements, so the Government will support one amendment in the other place: the royal prerogative amendment. There may be one or two others that seek to ensure that the prerogative is maintained as far as possible.
Business of the House
Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Sir Oliver Letwin
I am terribly sorry, but I will not give way, because I have promised to give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green and then to sit down.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, with whom I served in government for a positive period of time. I gently chide him on his previous comments about colleagues changing their minds. He knows very well that we all change our minds when we are in government, because we curse the very fact that we are delayed by the Speaker for urgent questions—you were one of those too, Mr Speaker. Now that we are here, we all praise the Speaker because we are not in government and we think it is an excellent idea. You were with me on that as well, Mr Speaker. I say gently that it never does to criticise colleagues for changing their minds. I think it is a habitual point in this House that we somehow forget what we said before.
On my right hon. Friend’s motion, I am little confused about how he thinks this procedure will follow from the House of Lords. I think he expects it to take precedence over everything else. Does he anticipate that this House might reject some amendments and, if so, how does he see this happening the second time around? Would it still have the same precedence?
Sir Oliver Letwin
The answer is yes it would, but I do not anticipate that that is at all likely. My sense, for what it is worth, is that although the House of Lords procedures are arcane and it is impossible to determine from the outside the time that will be taken, there is very substantial support for the Bill there, and it is therefore very unlikely that anything other than technical amendments, which might be wholly welcome, would come back, and they would therefore be accepted. I do not think that is an issue we need face.
I apologise for going on for so long. I have tried to answer the points that have been made and shall now sit down.
Mr Duncan Smith
I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I ask him this simple question. He has complained throughout this Parliament and the long time he has been here that, since the Blair Government brought in programme motions, Governments have cut and curtailed time for debate—he finds that reprehensible, and I agree with him. So why, when a Bill is introduced with such a tight timetable, does he not think that that creates an excellent precedent for the Government to use again and again? Will he complain about that in future?
Pete Wishart
What attracts me to this particular motion today is that Parliament is doing this. For the first time, Parliament is actually defining, creating and progressing a Bill through this House. That is an exciting prospect, and I did not think the right hon. Gentleman would be so churlish as not to enjoy that, as somebody who really enjoys such events.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I intend to be very brief. I rise to explain why I will oppose this motion, in line with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who spoke for the Government.
I think the biggest danger here is that a precedent is being set. I am not by any means the oldest Member in the House—I simply chide the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who spoke from the SNP Benches—but I recall that when I first came here that it was always a requirement for every Bill to have 100 hours in Committee before the Government were allowed to bring it back to the Floor of the House with any kind of guillotine. Debate and scrutiny took place in Committee, or on the Floor of the House for that matter, at great length, as many of my right hon. and hon. Friends will remember. I think the quality of our examination of Bills was infinitely better than what followed under the subsequent Labour Government, who introduced programme motions on Bills immediately. That has meant that this House has fallen into disrepute for its inability properly to scrutinise legislation in the way it should.
We now dump everything in the other place and say blithely, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) said earlier—I say quite genuinely that he is a good friend—things will go to the Lords and, of course, we expect the Lords to tidy it up. However, we are the elected Chamber: the public have elected us to come here to hold the Government to account. We constantly say that we are here to hold the Government to account, and then we blithely say that we will let the Lords do it for us when they get the chance and that we will think about it later on.
Mr Duncan Smith
I was not going to give way, because my right hon. Friend told us that we were speaking for too long, but I will give way to him.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I certainly would never accuse my right hon. Friend of speaking for too long; it was others who advised me that I was speaking for too long. I just say to him and other Members present that we are aware of the issues the Government have with the details. We have discussed with the Government, at their request, changes that would accommodate those concerns. We expressed our total willingness to include those amendments at this stage in the Commons; the Government, so far at any rate, have not come forward with those. That is why that would have to be in the Lords; I would far prefer if it were done today.
Mr Duncan Smith
I am happy to accept my right hon. Friend’s explanation for some of the rationale behind this, but if he will forgive me, I do not speak for the Government—to be fair, I have not done so for a little while, since I resigned, in case he had forgotten. I will try to speak for what I think it is like to be in opposition. I always think that Oppositions should be careful about what they wish for when they are going to be in government, because Oppositions fall upon all these mechanisms in this place. Delaying Bills is part of the reasonable rationale of an Opposition to force the Government to think again. These devices, once swept away at short notice, are swept away for good and for ill.
Mrs Main
I absolutely sympathise with the sentiments that my right hon. Friend is expressing. Did he note that our right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) also said that this was not the world’s best drafted Bill, but that there was not enough time and that the House of Lords would expedite it, because he had already talked to a few people there who were going to proceed in a fashion that meant it would come back here quickly? The rush associated with this is absolutely appalling.
Mr Duncan Smith
I think it is—I agree with my hon. Friend—but more important is the precedent being set. I worry that future Governments, of whichever persuasion, will reference this device and frequently conclude that time must be curtailed because it is their right to do so.
Lady Hermon
I urge the right hon. Gentleman not to feel bad about it. I also remind Members that the Northern Ireland Office has developed quite a habit of using the emergency procedure to take through Northern Ireland legislation in all its stages in one day in this House. We have had the Northern Ireland budget taken through in all its stages not just once but twice, when it was not an emergency, along with the regional rate and energy tariffs in Northern Ireland, so the right hon. Gentleman should please not use the argument that what we are doing today is setting a precedent. The Northern Ireland Office and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland have already set that precedent.
Mr Duncan Smith
I recognise that, and I think that procedure should never be used, except in absolute extremis. I agree with the hon. Lady. As someone who once served in Northern Ireland, I have to say that if we legislate in haste, we will repent at leisure, and we do nothing in this place but repent at leisure again and again. The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and all these other things that we said were emergencies were never properly scrutinised, and it is the scrutiny of this place that should matter above all else.
We talk about sweeping away precedents because they are archaic and were around for 200 years or whatever, and that everything modern must be brilliant. I do not agree with that. I think that sometimes history teaches endless lessons. This place is at its best when it is arguing and debating, and taking its time to do so. Other legislatures around the world, such as the Senate, which has no time limits, spend a lot of time looking at Bills and legislation. We do away with that at our peril.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, because he has made all the points that I want to make, so I do not now need to speak, expect to make one point about the Northern Ireland legislation. That process was done with the consent of both sides of the House before the legislation was brought through. Therefore, there was a consensus in this Chamber that it needed to be done in that way, which does not exist on this occasion. That is a convention of the greatest importance, because now a Government with a majority will feel entitled to use this dangerous process.
Mr Duncan Smith
I agree and I recognise that, but I think that Governments too often use that process, and it occasionally suits Oppositions to agree with them. It is better that we delay and debate. I will conclude with the wise words of my predecessor, now Lord Tebbit. When I first came here, I asked him, “How will I know whether I am right or wrong?” He said, “You’ll be wrong if you’re not speaking and arguing. You’re right if you’re arguing and you’re speaking. That’s what you were sent here for.”
Hilary Benn
The hon. Gentleman makes a really good point, because it was not clear from the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday how the propositions, if the two of them are not able to reach agreement, will be constructed and put to the House. Obviously, we will wait with interest to see what may come out of the discussions taking place today and—who knows?—tomorrow, but it does give the House a chance to interpose in this process. If I were the Leader of the House, I would be enthusiastically supporting amendment (a), because it may well be that votes on Monday will be exactly what is required to take this process forward, whether as a result of something that comes out of the talks or from the House itself.
Mr Duncan Smith
I am genuinely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, and I hesitate to correct him, but if he thinks back to what he has just said, he will see that he has made a comparison that does not stand. He compared what happened in the indicative votes with the failure of the Government’s motion. The Government had to get a majority of the House, and they are 48 short of that, whereas not one of the indicative votes got within whispering distance of a majority of the House. Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that if the indicative votes process is brought back, each element should meet the requirement of a majority vote of the House?
Hilary Benn
I was making the much simpler point that none of the propositions has carried. The Prime Minister said in her statement that
“the Government stands ready to abide by the decision of the House.”
That is important. She was referring to the indicative votes that may follow the process that we are currently undertaking. In my view, anything that the House indicates it is prepared to support—the difference is that indicative votes are so called precisely because we ask the House to indicate whether it is prepared to move in a given direction—would have to be considered by the Government. If a proposition were adopted, the Prime Minister would have to go to the European Union and seek to change the political declaration. At that point, it would come back to the House, and the test that the Government rightly set in section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018—the approval of the House for both the political declaration and the withdrawal agreement—would have to be passed.
Points of Order
Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
On account of his seniority I will take a further point of order from the right hon. Gentleman, but I hope he will not push his luck.
Mr Duncan Smith
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. As you know, I respect the Chair and I would never push my luck with you. I do not challenge the decision by any means, and it is your right to make it from the Chair, but over the past 24 or 25 years I have on a number of occasions, particularly during the Maastricht debates, asked the Clerks whether we could amend a Business of the House motion. I was always told categorically that precedent says it is not possible and, therefore, there was no point seeking to do so—I say that only as a statement.
Because this has a big impact on the Government’s ability to get their business, regardless of Brexit, will the instruction go to the Clerks that, in future, a Back Bencher wishing to amend a “forthwith” motion will now have such an amendment allowed and accepted against any business in the House?
Mr Speaker
It seems entirely reasonable for me to say to the right hon. Gentleman that I would like to reflect on that matter. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Order. Members cavil as though there is an assumption that there should be immediate and comprehensive knowledge of all circumstances that might subsequently unfold. It may be that there are Members who feel they possess such great wisdom and, if so, I congratulate them upon the fact. I do not claim that wisdom, so I am giving what I absolutely admit is a holding answer to the right hon. Gentleman. I will reflect on the point, but if he is asking whether I think it is unreasonable that people might seek to amend a Business of the House motion, I do not think it is unreasonable. If, in future, Back Benchers were to seek to do so, it would seem sensible to me to say, “Let us look at the merits of the case.”
Finally, in attempting to respond not only to the right hon. Gentleman but to some of the concerns that have been expressed, I understand the importance of precedent, but precedent does not completely bind, for one very simple reason. [Interruption.] I say this for the benefit of the Leader of the House, who is shaking her head. If we were guided only by precedent, manifestly nothing in our procedures would ever change. Things do change. I have made an honest judgment. If people want to vote against the amendment, they can; and if they want to vote for it, they can.
Business of the House
Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
I thank the hon. Lady for her many different points, and for her good wishes to the House. She raised a number of points on statutory instruments, and I have heard her request clearly. She will know that the Government have a good record in responding to reasonable requests from the Opposition for time for debates on the Floor of the House. We will continue to discuss such requests through the usual channels.
The hon. Lady made a point about designated Ministers with responsibility for statutory instruments, but I am not entirely sure that I caught it, so I will have to look it up in Hansard and write to her. To update the House, though, more than 290 Brexit statutory instruments have now been laid for Parliament to scrutinise, and very good progress is being made. We continue to provide as smooth a flow as possible for the sifting Committees in this House and the other place. We are quite clear that we have enough time to get all those urgent Brexit statutory instruments through. I hope that that reassures the House. The hon. Lady asked specifically about the universal credit statutory instrument; I shall take that away and take it up with the Secretary of State on her behalf.
The hon. Lady asked where the NHS 10-year plan is. She will be aware that our long-term plan for the NHS will see funding grow by £394 million more a week in real terms by 2023-24. That is the biggest investment in our NHS ever committed by a Government, and it is great news for the NHS. The NHS itself is writing its long-term plan for how it will use that money to provide a better service for patients, and we look forward to seeing that as soon as it is available.
The hon. Lady asked about the second week back after the Christmas recess. The business of the House will of course be subject to the motion, which will be put to the House on 9 January. There will then be the opportunity for the House to agree the business. She asked whether there will be a new motion; that will of course be subject to what the Prime Minister comes back with. As she has made clear, she is seeking legal reassurances on the issues around the backstop. Whether MPs will speak twice in the debate is a matter for you, Mr Speaker. It is matter for the Chair as to who speaks in debates.
Let me be clear: the hon. Lady suggested that the Prime Minister has not spoken to the Opposition, but she very much has. Throughout this Parliament the Government have been seeking to speak to Opposition Members closely and collaboratively about their concerns about the Brexit preparations. There were more than 280 hours of debate in the Chambers on the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, and it took more than 11 months for that Bill to go through Parliament. The hon. Lady will appreciate that there is a huge amount of consultation, and the Prime Minister is seeking to provide reassurance. If the hon. Lady wants uncertainty to be gone, she and her right hon. and hon. colleagues must take seriously the proposal that the Prime Minister will put before the House and seriously consider voting for it. That is the way to get rid of uncertainty for the country.
Finally, I should point out to the hon. Lady that Penelope Pitstop always wins through in the end. All the rotters and cads around her get defeated and she always wins.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
My right hon. Friend should recall that Penelope Pitstop was opposed by a man called Dick Dastardly, who was completely incompetent and lost out every time.
May I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to an issue of significant importance? I am a sponsor of Lord McColl’s Bill on improvements to modern-day slavery legislation. I recognise that it will never see the light of day in this Chamber, but will my right hon. Friend use her good offices to speak to her right hon. Friends in the Home Office and recognise that this great thing that the Conservative party introduced—this was the first Parliament in the world to introduce a modern slavery Bill, and we did that to help to release those people suffering—now needs serious adjustments to ensure that those who suffer persecution can be protected by being allowed longer stays in this country? I urge her to use her good offices to persuade the Home Office to extend that time, or to schedule a debate in the House on a possible extension to the time for which victims of modern slavery may stay in the UK. Otherwise, they risk being retrafficked, and we would never forgive ourselves if that happened.
Andrea Leadsom
My right hon. Friend raises an incredibly important point. All of us in this House are proud of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which the Prime Minister passed when she was Home Secretary. It is vital that we keep ahead of problems. It is extraordinary and utterly unacceptable that slavery still exists to this day. The Government have done a lot to protect against violence against women and girls. Through the 2015 Act, we will continue to review any steps that need to be taken to improve on the work that has already gone ahead.
Business of the House
Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Gentleman is raising, as he often does, a concerning constituency matter. I encourage him to take it up directly with Ministers, who seek to ensure that our immigration system is fair to those who want to come here and contribute to this country but is robust in dealing with those who are here illegally. If he wants me to take it up on his behalf, could he please write to me after business questions?
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
There is a rather arbitrary proposal by the Mayor of London to extend the low-emission zone to the north circular road. Without any exemptions, my constituents in Chingford will find it very difficult to get to their hospital without having to pay vast sums of money to go back and forth and into local communities. We need to look at exemptions for local travellers. May we have a debate about this?
While we are on the subject of Chingford, with your blessing, Mr Speaker, I want to wish Harry Kane the greatest good luck. He is the greatest striker in the world and happens also to be a Chingford boy, thus one of our own.
Andrea Leadsom
My right hon. Friend raises two very important points. I certainly join him in wishing Harry Kane the best of luck.
My right hon. Friend is right to raise the subject of the Mayor’s plans for low-emission zones in London. I know that there are grave concerns about the Mayor’s tendency to take credit for things that go well and blame central Government when anything is not going his way. It is for him to take action against the appalling air quality in certain parts of London, but it is also for him to facilitate the ability of innocent citizens to go about their daily business, whether for work or to hospital and so on. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that challenge to the Mayor.
Tributes (Speaker Martin)
Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I rise, very briefly, to join your tribute, Mr Speaker, which I appreciated very much.
On two occasions in my time in the House, I had cause to work closely with Michael Martin. The first occasion was when, after my Maastricht rebellions, I was banished by the Whips Office—they were able to do that in those days, as Mr Speaker will know—to an in-House Committee which met but infrequently. They thought that would be a punishment, but it was an absolute pleasure because Michael was the Chair of the Committee. He greeted me and said, “I know why you are here and it is not because you are interested in the running of the House!” He then regaled me with tales of the pipe major and many of the pipers in the Scots Guards, with whom I had served, and their chequered careers; the number of times they had gone up in the ranks and down in the ranks due to too much post-piping whisky. He offered to give me an example of just how they maintained their rank while playing well and he did just that. We missed a number of committee hearings as a result of his piping—I do not know who chaired them, by the way, even to this day—but he seemed less than interested in that and more interested in the piping side of things. I got along with him famously and the Whips never knew what a pleasure it was to be banished to that Committee.
The second occasion was when I had the misfortune to be elected leader of the Conservative party. I was the first Catholic to be elected as leader. I know just how difficult being the Leader of the Opposition is, particularly if one’s party wants to have an argument in an empty room most of the time, which I have some sense of, if not a little pleasure in. Michael took me to his room and chatted away to me about the difficulties. During our conversations, we settled on the fact that both of us were the first Catholics to serve in our positions. He was very proud of that, as was I.
Our roles did not quite end in the way we might have wished and that is one thing that I am very sad about. This House was going through a very difficult time and it was inevitable that the Speaker would, to some degree, become a focus of that. I want to put on record my view that this decent man was taken to task in a way that I did not think were his just deserts. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] He took on his shoulders a lot of what had happened. I think his early departure is something the House may someday want to look at and ask whether it was fair to him in the way that he had been to it.
I am sad at Michael’s passing. He was a decent man and a good man. We did not necessarily treat him with the respect and decency he deserved, and I am sorry for that.
Mr Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman very warmly for what he has said. I think the reaction of the House shows that colleagues feel the same.
Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy
Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
I commend the hon. Lady: she did first raise the issue of having a specialist adviser on sexual harassment, and I agree that that is important. I point out, however, that the House’s respect policy does deal with sexual harassment. It might not do so to her satisfaction, but for the purpose of clarity I should say that the helpline would include advice and guidance to individuals who wanted to complain of sexual harassment. I am, however, absolutely open to her suggestion that there should be a separately named policy on sexual harassment, which will be a matter for the working party to consider.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I fully support and congratulate my right hon. Friend on acting so speedily and working in a cross-party manner to get this situation reconciled, and I fully support everything that has been said. I agree that there is a real issue about separating sexual harassment from other charges and think that will have to be looked at separately.
I have two points to make, however, in observation. First, the parties keep on stating that they must have their own party procedures. There is, however, a real issue here. What we get is parties acting, by, for instance, suspending the whip from an MP, but they are still an MP and carry on with duties and responsibilities here in the House. How swift and co-located can the process be with what goes on in the House in terms of investigations? MPs stand accused, and the longer this goes on, the more difficult it becomes for them to do their job, or should they be doing their job at all? I ask my right hon. Friend to look carefully at that, because if there is a false charge, we need to get that cleared up quickly. The dichotomy between an MP having a suspended party membership but still working as an MP could end up being the problem.
Andrea Leadsom
My right hon. Friend raises an important point, which the working party has acknowledged needs to be resolved. He is right that if somebody stands accused, it is difficult to be clear how to proceed where a party procedure might make a decision to take action on the whip and there is an ongoing grievance or, indeed, a criminal procedure in another area in terms of either the police or this grievance and complaints procedure. My right hon. Friend therefore raises an important point, which the working party will look at, but we do not as yet have the answer.