House of Commons Governance

Debate between Jack Straw and Bernard Jenkin

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

With luck, this report will not be particularly uncomfortable to anybody, but it will involve major change—above all, for traditionalists, if there are such, in this House.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

As a traditionalist, perhaps, neither do I want to see business as usual.

The right hon. Gentleman’s findings are a great opportunity for a big change in the culture—by which we mean the attitudes and behaviour—of people throughout the organisation so that, in cases such as that of the gym, there is somebody who is clearly accountable for such decisions and wants to take responsibility for making them. The lack of trust that the current structure has generated needs to change, and I think he has come up with the right solution. Some structures can be set up in such a way as to generate mistrust, but he has chosen a structure—not entirely one of my choosing, I accept—that will create the opportunity to generate real trust and accountability throughout the organisation.

[Mr Straw]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, not least because, as I acknowledged in my opening remarks, he co-sponsored the resolution that led to the establishment of the Committee. Those who have had to put up with it can smile about what has been going on in the bowels of the old Canon Row police station, but I very much hope that the Commission might examine, as a case study, what went wrong there. In my judgment—this is not to criticise the good faith of the officials involved—we have a decision-making structure at an official level where somebody gets something agreed, then they have another thought, and there is no proper structure above that for saying, “Should we be doing this? Why didn’t you think of that in advance?” It is ironic that the people making these decisions in Parliament are less accountable—certainly to Members and, I think, to senior officials—than they would be in an ordinary corporate organisation. That has to change because, apart from anything else, it is wasting a lot of money.

[Mr Jenkin]

The other tension that exists in the current organisation is that, with the best will in the world, the Management Board is trying to think strategically in the long term and there has not always been synergy between its strategic long-term thoughts and the Commission’s strategic long-term thoughts. Merging the two organisations will generate that synergy.

[Mr Straw]

I hope that is the case. Putting the non-executive members on to the Commission, with all their outside experience, should ensure that the input into a longer-term strategy is where it should be, which is ultimately with the Commission.

I want to conclude—

Iran

Debate between Jack Straw and Bernard Jenkin

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

We have yet to hear whether the right hon. Gentleman is going to support the amendment or the motion—[Hon. Members: “The amendment.”] I beg his pardon. Were the implicit military threat to be taken off the table, with whom in the current regime would we negotiate? Is that not a matter of considerable complexity? I am all in favour of negotiation, but with whom should we negotiate? Is that not part of the problem?

[Mr Straw]

I have had a serious problem in my right ear since 1981, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that there is a very good consultant just across the river at St Thomas’s, on the NHS. I have been treated there for 30 years. I think it was within the hearing of the House and Hansard when, within about my first two sentences, I spelled out that I would support the amendment moved by the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington. I apologise if it did not quite get as far as the bubble in which the hon. Gentleman sits.

United Kingdom Statistics Authority

Debate between Jack Straw and Bernard Jenkin

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Let me begin by declaring an interest: I am an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. The society graciously bestowed that honour on me for my work in the 1990s in advancing the case for an independent national statistical service and proper parliamentary scrutiny of statistics.

I am delighted to observe that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) is present. It was he who introduced the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, which completed the journey from a statistical service that was half independent and half controlled by Government to a service in which the producers of the statistics, the Office for National Statistics and its agents, and the supervisor of that production, the United Kingdom Statistics Authority, became entirely independent of Government.

I also commend the Public Administration Committee for its work both in monitoring the work of the authority and in conducting the process of this appointment. It is interesting to recall, as I do, the nervousness that was abroad at one time about Select Committees having any role in public appointments, given that this appointment has effectively been made entirely by Parliament, and has been endorsed by a Select Committee with the approval—hopefully—of the House.

I know Sir Michael Scholar well and I think that he did an outstanding job as the first chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, in difficult circumstances. Nobody should underestimate the pressure that was put on him when he dared to criticise the Government of whom I was a member. He criticised the frankly preposterous behaviour of part of the Government—special advisers in No. 10 and in the Home Office—in allowing not just the pre-release of statistics, but the traducing of statistics that should have been properly released by the Office for National Statistics.

That was part of a culture that went back to previous Administrations, and we have seen one example of it during this Administration, whereby special advisers in No. 10, all jockeying among themselves to show that they are more adept than their colleagues in getting material into the newspapers and anxious for attention from the master, cajole the people they believe are their subordinates—the special advisers in the individual Departments. They say, “We can see this on the grid”—the wretched grid—“and we must know about this. We want early information. There is something else coming up. We have heard a rumour that those nasty people in the Opposition are about to do X or Y, or there is a terribly bad news story, Z, and if only we can get this good news out, all will be fine.” That is all without purpose, it never works, it always ends in tears and it carries on. The problem is that previously, unless a strong and confident Minister was looking after those statistics, it was all too easy for this abuse to run away with itself. I had only one occasion when those at No. 10 tried this on me and I told them to get lost, saying that if they wanted I would come to the House to make a statement about what they were trying to suborn my officials and special advisers, who are of the highest integrity, into doing. I was secure in my position but a very large number of Ministers, sadly, are not in that happy position.

I know what the chuntering was when Sir Michael Scholar criticised the practice of the Home Office and No. 10 in December 2008—I believe it was then. It is no coincidence that much of the attempt to bypass official release mechanisms has taken place in respect of Home Office statistics. That is not because the Home Office statisticians—or now the Ministry of Justice statisticians—are any less worthy or any less replete with integrity; it is because of the highly political nature of the information they convey. Sir Michael set out, in handling that abuse, to continue in a similar manner, and he put his foot down on a number of further occasions—two when the Labour Government were in power and once under this Government. I hope that, bit by bit, Ministers, officials and special advisers will get the message that in the 21st century it is no more appropriate to try to interfere with the generation, organisation, analysis and publication of official statistics than it is to interfere in the generation, analysis and publication of the accounts of a Department.

No Minister or senior official at any level would dream of saying, “We’ve got to alter the accounts. It is a bit inconvenient but this has come up and we seem to have lost some money.” Such alteration is a criminal offence for directors of companies. It is worth remembering that in the early part of the 19th century it was perfectly commonplace for Ministers to ensure that there was a bit of fiddling of the statistics. A lot of Ministers lined their own pockets, a few got charged with corruption but generally got away with it, and one or two were impeached. That was the culture of the times. We have moved away from that in respect of financial probity, but we now have to see a similar cultural shift in respect of statistical probity because otherwise the whole political debate and discourse in this country will be the loser.

We can have serious discussions when it comes to arguments about finance. We know what the deficit is and we can argue about what its components are, but no one suggests that it has somehow been made up. It is there. With other statistics—particularly social statistics, and particularly those on crime and immigration—there has been a ridiculous argument about whether crime has gone up or down. The same applies to unemployment and so on. We must move away from that, because it is a real turn-off for the public and it is very undermining for the quality of debate in this country.

Let me make two points, the first of which is on pre-release statistics. The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) was quite right to draw attention to the fact that before the election the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General made a lot of play of the fact that he was going to abandon pre-release notice, or move at best to one hour. We should have abandoned it when we were in government, but we did not do so. He said that he would and then, when he came into government, hey presto, he supped at the royal jelly—or something like that—or had a nod from somebody at No. 10 and suddenly decided that he was wrong.

[Mr Jenkin]

Will the right hon. Gentleman reflect on what interests prevented him from persuading his colleagues to abolish it and does he therefore have some sympathy with my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General as regards the opposition he might be facing?

[Mr Straw]

I have sympathy with the Minister, of course. He happens to be my pair, anyway, so I declare that interest too. I have every sympathy with him, but the forces of darkness get tiring after a while. People always think that the Government will do better if only they can get early information and slip this or that past, but that is all nonsense.

My officials and others used to regard it as slightly tedious that I was not terribly bothered about when the figures were coming out—although I was early on, when I was neurotic about when the crime figures were being released. My view was that one had to ask what the point was of knowing in advance. It just led to a suspicion that we had somehow fiddled the figures because we had had them early and all the rest of it. There was absolutely no point at all. Why not find out at exactly the same time as anybody else? It is impertinent to think that Ministers should have any right to find out in advance. Why should they? They are not Ministers of figures—the figures belong to the public and Parliament. It is also self-defeating, in my opinion.

My advice to the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General and his colleagues is: chill and defeat the forces of darkness. I am sorry I did not complete that task, notwithstanding being joined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne. Ministers will do themselves an enormous favour if they abandon pre-release notice.

Voting by Prisoners

Debate between Jack Straw and Bernard Jenkin

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

I will give way in a couple of seconds, but I will just make some progress.

The retired Law Lord, to whom the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden referred, has recently said that the Human Rights Act could be

“a perfectly serviceable British Bill of Rights”.

That, in essence, is what it is. The Act was expertly drafted. It gave the courts the power to declare primary legislation incompatible with the convention, but no power to strike down that legislation.

[Mr Jenkin]

rose—

[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend, and I thank him for his support. Like any former Home Secretary, he knows how difficult but vital it is to balance rights, liberties, duties and obligations in that very high office.

[Mr Jenkin]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

I give way to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am listening carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman is saying about the margin of appreciation. I think that we are in danger of overselling that as a solution, because the problems with our current relationship with the convention are to do with the drafting of the convention and how the Court interprets its words. Geoffrey Robertson, QC, who is no slouch on human rights and is currently representing Julian Assange, explained in the article “Why We Need a British Bill of Rights”:

“The European Convention also failed to include the rights Parliament won by the ‘Glorious Revolution’ in 1689”.

He went on to state:

“There is mounting evidence that the weasel words of the European Convention are damaging other basic British rights.”

He also stated:

“The Convention is in some respects out of date.”

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with those words? How are we going to address those problems?

[Mr Straw]

The hon. Gentleman is taking us into wider territory. I happen to think that the problem is not the plain text of the convention, but the way in which it has been over-interpreted to extend the jurisdiction of the European Court. I will come on to that point in a moment. I do not, however, subscribe to the view that the 1951 convention is the last word on what should be in a Bill of Rights. I share Lord Hoffmann’s view that it is a very good starting point. There is a wider issue—a rabbit hole I do not intend to go down if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me—about whether we should have a written statement of our key constitutional rights. I think that we should, and that the sovereignty of Parliament should be right at the top of it. However, that is a separate point.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Jack Straw and Bernard Jenkin

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

The Labour party manifesto contained a commitment to legislate for fixed-term Parliaments, as did that of the Liberal Democrats, as we have heard. The Conservative party manifesto included no such commitment whatever, and as the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) reminded the House at the beginning of the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech, the proposition from the then Leader of the Opposition, now Prime Minister, was directly contradictory to that contained in the Bill. His proposition was that, were there a change of Prime Minister during a Parliament, that change should trigger a general election within six months of the new Prime Minister taking over. As a direct consequence of the Bill, that solemn commitment at the general election has been not just bypassed but wholly contradicted.

I am quite sure that the process that led to the Bill, following the general election, was entirely one of cerebration and consideration of the balance of the intellectual arguments—

[Mr Jenkin]

Of course.

[Mr Straw]

I note the hon. Gentleman’s comments from a sedentary position, and he is often right about these matters. I am quite certain that the process had absolutely nothing whatever to do with horse trading about a deal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

From a sedentary position, again, my hon. Friend prompts me to correct myself: Conservative Members in the Government have made a Pauline conversion, although it is palpable from today’s debate that, unlike St Paul, they have taken few voluntary converts with them.

If the Government and the House get the Bill right, it will be a positive innovation for our democracy. I do not share the Deputy Prime Minister’s hyperbole, but I certainly share his belief that it is a step forward, not a step back. We intend to work constructively to deliver what would be a significant constitutional change. For that reason, we will not divide the House tonight. However, let us be clear from the outset: the Bill as currently drafted does not stand up to scrutiny, even the limited scrutiny that the Government have permitted the House to date. The Bill will need substantial revision if we are to be able to support it on Third Reading, as we had wished to do.

The introduction of fixed-term Parliaments is intended to strengthen Parliament and fetter the Executive, and to make the political process more legitimate in the eyes of the public by reassuring them that the date of elections can no longer be at the whim of the Prime Minister. We have heard a lot about the power of the Prime Minister. Having known one or two Prime Ministers, I think that many Prime Ministers and potential Prime Ministers would rather not have the right and power to call a general election, as it has a brutal logic: if they win, they have made the most positive decision of their life; if they lose, they are almost always out of office, too.

[Mr Jenkin]

Can we take it that the right hon. Gentleman has also reached a completely dispassionate judgment, and that his decision to allow the Bill a Second Reading is in no way coloured by the possibility that his party will end up in government without a general election if it is passed?

[Mr Straw]

Funnily enough, I had not thought of that. Perhaps I should have. It is not that I am innocent of such considerations, but on this occasion it had not occurred to me.

The Bill does botch the job, however. It provides for a standard Parliament to be too long, at five years. It fails to clarify the procedures for confidence votes, opening up the possibility of a lame-duck Administration and constitutional limbo. It leaves a large loophole enabling Prime Ministers to use the prerogative power to prorogue Parliament, as happened recently in Canada. The mechanism for triggering an early Dissolution of Parliament may impinge—I put it no more strongly than that—on parliamentary privilege by creating the risk that courts could intervene on parliamentary proceedings.

Much of the incoherence of the Bill is a consequence of the unnecessary haste with which it is being rushed through Parliament. A week ago, the House debated the Second Reading of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. That too is being rushed through, with the Deputy Prime Minister breaking all previous undertakings about the importance of pre-legislative scrutiny.

If Members accept the imperative of a May 2011 date for the alternative-vote referendum—although I do not—at least the right hon. Gentleman has a fig leaf of an excuse for seeking to rush that Bill through at this early stage, but palpably no such excuse exists for rushing this Bill through. Had there been any justification, such as a packed legislative programme which might have hit the end-of-Session buffers, that excuse would have been blown away this morning by the ill-thought-through announcement by the Leader of the House that the current Session is to last for two full years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, it would have been difficult for me not to notice that he had taken an interest in privilege in relation to the Parliamentary Standards Bill, as he was scarcely ever not on his feet complaining about something or other that I was doing from the Treasury Bench. The Clerk was absolutely right to raise the issue and in the end we got through it. We were genuinely up against the clock with that measure, because the leaders of all three main parties had agreed both a timetable and broad outline contents.

In this case, I am not coming down on one side or the other, but the issue is sufficiently worrying that we need to take our time.

[Mr Jenkin]

rose—

[Mr Straw]

Many Members want to speak, and as I have spoken at some length I want to conclude.

Legislation for fixed-term Parliaments is a desirable objective and it could be achieved on a cross-party basis, but that requires the Government to go back to the drawing board and respond to the valid criticisms that have been made about the Bill. We want to play our part in helping them to do that and, as I said, we shall not oppose Second Reading, but we want considerable revisions, which require more time and considerably greater opportunity for scrutiny. It also—if I may say so—requires the Deputy Prime Minister in particular to adopt a more measured, considered and consultative approach than has been evident to date. I fully accept that the House’s not knowing about the note on privilege was an error and in no sense intentional, but I have to say that it is very aggravating and does not improve the environment in which the House receives such measures. I hope that we can see a different approach from Ministers. Although most Members support the principle, a huge amount of detail has to be got right before there is any chance of the legislation becoming law.