Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

I shall. The business for the week commencing 9 December will include:

Monday 9 December—Remaining stages of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill.

Tuesday 10 December—Committee of the whole House on the Finance Bill (day one).

Wednesday 11 December—Committee of the whole House on the Finance Bill (day two).

Thursday 12 December—General debate on Lord Etherton’s independent review into the treatment of LGBT veterans, followed by debate on a motion on the performance of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 13 December—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 16 December will include:

Monday 16 December—Second Reading of the Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 17 December—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill.

Wednesday 18 December—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill [Lords], followed by Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Financial Assistance to Ukraine Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Bill [Lords].

Thursday 19 December—General debate on matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

The House will rise for the Christmas recess at the conclusion of business on Thursday 19 December and return on Monday 6 January 2025.

[Jesse Norman]

It is great to see that Christmas has come to the Palace of Westminster. I hope, Mr Speaker, that you enjoyed the Christmas fayre yesterday, and that you loaded up on goods from Frank’s Luxury Biscuits from Herefordshire just as heavily as I did—

[Mr Speaker]

I was wondering who ate all the biscuits.

[Jesse Norman]

And just in time for Small Business Saturday, too.

I understand that the Prime Minister will deliver a speech later today setting out his plan for change. I must say, I am delighted—I am sure we all are—to hear that the Government are at last adopting a plan and are trying to change. As we have so often noted at business questions, the Government’s first five months have been a festival—no, a carnival, a supermarket sweep, a fill-your-boots, all-you-can-eat blunder-fest—of delay and incompetence.

You, Mr Speaker, more than any Member of this House, will be aware that the effective functioning of Parliament rests on its ability to hold Ministers to account. That has been true since its origins in the 13th century, and arguably since even before that. As you will know, the practice of seeking reasons and explanations for official actions, be they the passage of Bills or the raising of taxation, is not some useful add-on or afterthought; it is absolutely foundational to the whole idea of Parliament as a deliberative assembly, so I am sure that you will understand my disappointment that the Leader of the House has been so persistently unwilling to answer, or even address, the simple questions that I have put to her in recent weeks.

On 14 November, I drew attention to the Government’s incompetence in combining at the same time three measures on national insurance and the minimum wage in a way that drastically raises the cost of hiring entry-level staff, and I asked for an assessment of the total impact of those measures. I am afraid that the Leader of the House’s response was to blame the previous Government, and to talk about employers who will pay no additional national insurance, a completely different group—quite irrelevant to the question asked. On 21 November, I again highlighted this problem, and got the same response: blame the last Government and change the subject. I also extended my concern about the Government’s incompetence to include their decision to bring the clean energy commitment forward from 2035 to 2030, and highlighted a vast array of public and official worries about whether this was either achievable or financially viable. In response, I am sorry to say, the Leader of the House again did not engage with either question, instead accusing me of political opportunism.

Last week, we saw the same thing once more. For the third time, I raised the question of Labour’s triple whammy in combining changes to national insurance rates and thresholds with changes to the minimum wage. This time, the Leader of the House did not simply duck the question and change the subject; she also gave me the benefit of a little homily on the duties of the Opposition. It is true that the duties of the Opposition are a topic on which, unlike the duties of Government, she has built up considerable expertise over more than a decade, but the real point is this: for a month now, I have been putting to the Leader of the House basic questions about the incompetence of this Government. Many different responses were open to her. She could have said, “I agree with you.” She could have said, “I don’t know,” “I will look into it,” “I will reply to you,” “I will ask a ministerial colleague to investigate and respond,” or “I will come back to the House with a proper account,” but on no occasion has she bothered to give any kind of proper answer at all.

Instead—and I fear the same will be true this week—the Leader of the House’s approach has been to change the subject and attack the previous Government, rather than defend the record of her Government, which is the whole point of these exchanges. Let us see what she says when she stands up shortly. If the Government had made a decent start, of course she might want to talk about that, but the truth is that the Government have made a dreadful start. They have been beset by petty scandals from the beginning; they have destroyed business confidence through a Budget that is visibly unravelling before our eyes, and only this week, they have lost a Cabinet Minister to new revelations about a criminal conviction for fraud. It is little wonder that the Prime Minister wants a reset.

The Leader of the House’s unwillingness to engage, and to recognise and respond to questions, is arguably more important than any aspect of policy, because it strikes at the heart of the very idea of our parliamentary democracy. It is a discourtesy—indeed, possibly even an insult—to you, Mr Speaker, to all our colleagues and their constituents, and to this House. It is made worse because the Leader of the House is responsible for parliamentary business and procedure, and should, one might think, set an example of openness. It is worse still for two further reasons: because she herself has so often called for transparency from Ministers, and because a failure to be accountable is itself a breach of the rules of this House, of the Nolan principles and of the ministerial code of conduct. That is quite a combination, so I ask her whether she plans to continue as she has done, or whether she will change this unfortunate habit and start to engage with the serious questions that I have been asking.

[Lucy Powell]

First, I put on record that Tuesday was International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and note that the House of Commons now has more disabled Members than ever before. I commend their contribution, and look forward to working with them through the Modernisation Committee, and with you, Mr Speaker, to make sure that this place and our politics are as accessible as they can be. As has been mentioned, this Saturday is Small Business Saturday, when we celebrate the heart of all our high streets. In these sessions, I like to hear about many of our constituents’ great cafés, and in particular their bars, especially when an invitation for me to visit follows.

I also put on record my thanks to you, Mr Speaker, for the way proceedings were handled last Friday, and to all of those who took part in the debate on assisted dying, or were in the Chamber for it. That debate was respectful, considered and thoughtful. Whatever view we each took, it was a moment when huge attention was on us, and I thought our democracy and our Parliament showed itself at its best.

Members will see that there are lots of important issues and much important business in the run-up to Christmas. Two thirds of the Bills that we announced in our King’s Speech are now making their way through Parliament. The rail franchising Bill has received Royal Assent; the Renters’ Rights Bill has completed Committee; and our important Budget measures will soon be passed. We are fixing the foundations and getting on with the job. As has been noted, copies of the “Plan for Change” will be available in the Vote Office shortly, ahead of the statement later today.

It is another week, and another misjudged and confused contribution from the shadow Leader of the House. He really does need to work out what the Conservative strategy for opposition is. Is it to tell people across the country that they never had it so good as when the Conservatives were in office, or to learn from defeat and accept that they got things wrong? I gently advise them to listen to the voters, because acting as if they did nothing wrong and accepting no responsibility will not do them any good at all. If the right hon. Gentleman does not want to take my advice, perhaps he should listen to his own, because he said that the Conservatives suffered from

“many disastrous recent failures of policy and leadership”,

and I agree. He said we inherited a “struggling” economy and “anaemic” growth; I agree with that, too. I also agreed with him when he was a champion of net zero, and when he was Financial Secretary to the Treasury, he was right to care about economic stability. I agreed with him; does he still agree with him? I am not quite sure.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about scrutiny of legislation and debate, but I gently remind him that we have had many debates on the Finance Bill, on the Budget, and the on the national insurance contributions Bill, which is coming back to the House next week and before Christmas. I must remind him yet again, I am afraid, that he was Financial Secretary to the Treasury when the national insurance contributions were raised not just on business but on workers; he said that was a thoroughly “Conservative thing to do.” He was also a Treasury Minister when the minimum wage was raised. He has had plenty of time to come to this House and explain why he thought that was okay then but not okay now.

The right hon. Gentleman raised the topic of the economy, but he failed to mention one of the big economic forecasts out this week, from the OECD, which shows that the UK is now forecast to be the fastest growing European economy in the G7 over the next three years. He did not mention that when he was talking about the economy. We have always been clear that growth only matters when ordinary people right around the country feel better off and see public services improve; that is the difference between our economic plans and his.

We have a plan for change; the Conservatives have yet to change—they are yet to learn their own lessons. We are laying out today how we will deliver our clear outcomes. The right hon. Gentleman might not like them, because the Conservatives failed on all their measures, which is why they lost the election. While he and the rest of his party shout from the sidelines and try to rewrite history, we are delivering the real change that the public voted for.

Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

The business for the week commencing 2 December includes:

Monday 2 December—General debate on the Grenfell Tower inquiry phase 2 report.

Tuesday 3 December—Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill.

Wednesday 4 December—Opposition day (4th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.

Thursday 5 December—Debate on a motion on detained British nationals abroad, followed by a general debate on improving public transport. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 6 December—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 9 December will include:

Monday 9 December—Remaining stages of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill.

Tuesday 10 December—Committee of the whole House on the Finance Bill (day 1).

Wednesday 11 December—Committee of the whole House on the Finance Bill (day 2).

Thursday 12 December—General debate on Lord Etherton’s independent review into the treatment of LGBT veterans, followed by a debate on a motion on the performance of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 13 December—The House will not be sitting.

[Jesse Norman]

I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in wishing a very happy Thanksgiving day to all our American friends and family, and a happy big birthday today to the Clerk: the Joe Root of the parliamentary estate. Huge thanks to him for his stylish and expert first century—half-century, I should say!

Mr Speaker, a man of your wide culture and extensive learning will doubtless be familiar with the film “Mad Max”. I am no expert, but the image that it conjures up of a desolate, chaotic landscape with wreckage strewn everywhere is the perfect metaphor for the Government’s recent Budget.

Let us take hospices, for example. In Herefordshire, we are blessed to have the extraordinary St Michael’s hospice. St Michael’s supports hundreds of in-patients a year with end of life care, and thousands more as out-patients and with visits in the community. It has a dedicated staff, assisted by some 800 volunteers. This is extraordinary. I shudder to think what it would cost the state to provide that kind and quality of care—certainly more than £20 million a year. What has this Labour Budget done to St Michael’s hospice? The changes to national insurance alone will cost the hospice an extra £250,000 next year, but that is only part of it. At the same time, the Budget has directly and indirectly pushed up the wage bill by a further £450,000. That is £700,000 annually in extra costs—a vast amount for an organisation that offers incredible care, and actually saves the NHS £20 million a year. Hospices in almost every constituency will be affected, and so are the interests of almost every colleague in this House.

This disastrous outcome was clearly never intended by the Treasury. It is another completely unnecessary blunder with potentially tragic consequences. As with GPs, pharmacies and mental health and social care charities, no compensation whatsoever has been offered for this tax raid. When will the Government publish a proper impact assessment and explain why none has been offered?

There is a direct link here to the issue of assisted dying. In the words of the Health Secretary, no less,

“I do not think that palliative care, end-of-life care in this country is in a condition yet where we are giving people the freedom to choose, without being coerced by the lack of support available.”

That care is now being deliberately worsened by his own Chancellor. Personally, I feel strongly pulled in both directions by both sides, but one thing no one can be in any doubt about is that the Government have no business trying to rush this legislation through the House by proxy. The text of the Bill was published barely two weeks prior to our vote tomorrow. No impact assessment or legal issues analysis have been published. Far from public debate preceding legislation, legislation has preceded debate. That is completely the wrong way around.

We can be perfectly clear about this. All Members of Parliament were recently sent a dossier by the promoter of the Bill entitled, “Your questions answered”. Unfortunately, far from answering key questions, the dossier fails even to touch on a whole series of important issues. Those include the Bill’s impact on the medical profession and the relationship between medical staff and patients, its impact on the provision and regulation of the different drugs and drug cocktails required, the record to date and protocols to be used in case an initial attempt at assisted dying fails, and what the inevitable for-profit industry exploiting the new law will look like and how we should feel about it.

As the senior judge Sir James Munby highlighted, there are a host of questions about involving the judiciary in the process and the balance of probabilities test for coercion. Most profoundly of all, there is the question of what choice and dignity actually mean in different contexts. None of those matters is even mentioned in the dossier purporting to give the answers. Whatever one feels about the issue of assisted dying itself—as I say, I feel very pulled in both directions—this absence of debate, especially with so many new Members in the House, is a matter of the gravest public concern. As the House well knows, the Government themselves are all over the place on the issue.

In asking for an assessment of the Bill’s likely impact on the NHS, the Health Secretary was doing exactly the right thing: preparing civil servants and clinicians for what could be a huge change and asking them to look at a crucial question that has not even been addressed, let alone properly answered. As for the Justice Secretary, she was attacked by none other than her own Labour predecessor Lord Falconer of Thoroton for imposing her views, but his lordship somehow missed that she was also making the argument that it was inappropriate in principle for the state to get involved in what many term “assisted suicide”. That too is yet another issue that has barely been discussed. I ask the right hon. Lady whether she shares my view that it is a tragedy that colleagues are being asked to vote without full and proper consideration of the vital issues I have mentioned.

[Lucy Powell]

I join the right hon. Gentleman in congratulating the Clerk of the House on his very special birthday. As someone recently on the other side of that same special birthday—obviously, I know I do not look it—I welcome him to the half-century club, and I hope his party is as good as mine was. We will leave that conversation for another day.

This week, we marked White Ribbon Day. I am proud that this Government have pledged to halve violence against women and girls. I am also proud to have announced the debate on Lord Etherton’s review of the treatment of LGBT veterans today. I am particularly pleased for my friend and Manchester resident Carl Austin-Behan, who, after years of decorated service in the RAF, was dismissed the day the RAF found out he was gay. He deserves recognition and much more, as do many others.

I know that the shadow Leader of the House is fairly new to opposition, like most of his colleagues, but I gently say to him that the idea of opposition is to oppose the Government, not his own record in government. Last week he attacked our plans to meet climate goals, yet when he was the Minister with responsibility for decarbonisation, he seemed to take a very different view, touring the studios to champion net zero. Here we are yet again: he is attacking our plans on national insurance contributions, but I checked the record and noticed that when his Government raised national insurance contributions—and not just on businesses but on workers —he was the Financial Secretary to the Treasury at the time, and said in defence of the measure, from this very Dispatch Box:

“It is a profoundly Conservative thing to do”—[Official Report, 8 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 326.]

He seems to have been for it then but is against it now. I am not sure what his position is—I am quite confused about it.

May I say to the hospice that he mentioned, and to the many hospices like it, that we have made a record investment in the NHS? The hospice sector was left on its knees by the right hon. Gentleman’s Government. As he knows, the Health Secretary will soon come to the House to explain how the record allocation of resources that he has received will be distributed, including to the hospice sector.

The right hon. Gentleman raises the assisted dying issues that we will discuss tomorrow. I must say, I think it is regrettable that he has chosen this opportunity to raise those matters in such an unnecessarily political fashion. This issue generates very emotive responses on both sides, and I hope that tomorrow’s debate will be conducted in a respectful, considerate, non-partisan and non-political manner. He asks about time and scrutiny, which I have mentioned before. As Leader of the House, I am very confident that the Bill will undergo sufficient scrutiny and will have sufficient time for consideration.

As I have said before from the Dispatch Box, the Government will of course implement the will of the House, whatever it may be. And, as I have also said before, should the House choose to give the Bill its Second Reading, the Government will of course work with the Bill’s promoter to ensure that the Bill and the policy are workable, operable and implemented. That will mean working with the promoter on tidying up any measures where necessary. The Department of Health and Social Care is getting to work straightaway on what the Bill will mean in terms of implementation, assessment and the documentation that the right hon. Gentleman highlights. Should the House decline to give the Bill its Second Reading, then of course that work would not happen. As I have said before, after several weeks in Committee, the first opportunity for the Bill to return to the House will not be until the end of April—that is a considerable amount of time for the Government to do that work and consider the Bill further.

Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

The business for the week commencing 25 November will include:

Monday 25 November—Second Reading of the Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill.

Tuesday 26 November—Second Reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.

Wednesday 27 November—Second Reading of the Finance Bill.

Thursday 28 November—Debate on a motion on the international status of Taiwan, followed by a debate on a motion on freedom of religion in Pakistan. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 29 November—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 2 December includes:

Monday 2 December—General debate on the Grenfell Tower inquiry phase 2 report.

Tuesday 3 December—Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill.

Wednesday 4 December—Opposition day (4th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 5 December—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 6 December—Private Members’ Bills.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I associate hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House with the comments made about Lord Prescott’s death.

I am delighted to hear that the House administration is aiming to win the National Autistic Society’s autism friendly award. I know that all colleagues will want to join me in wishing the House team good luck with that.

In last week’s episode of this long-running saga, I drew attention to the Government’s incompetence in having a Budget that managed to raise the rate of national insurance, lower the NI threshold and increase the minimum wage all at the same time. I described that as a “terrible blow” to the retail and hospitality sectors and asked if the Treasury would publish an assessment of the total effect of those measures before they came to the House. Well, I need hardly have bothered, because barely five days later, what did we find? A letter from Tesco, Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury’s, all the major supermarkets and many of the biggest names in the retail industry highlighting the Budget’s impact in forcing shop closures and job losses.

The sad truth is that there is nothing surprising here. It was completely obvious to everyone except the Government that this unplanned triple whammy was likely to have this effect. I ask the Leader of the House again: will we see an analysis of its effects when the Finance Bill comes to the House next week or alongside the forthcoming National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill?

Otherwise, I think we should turn our attention to energy. The Government have proclaimed their intention to make Britain a 100% clean energy producer by 2030. A couple of weeks ago, the new National Energy System Operator published a report on how that might be done. I must say that I am feeling a degree of embarrassment, as I had been under the impression that the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero was a slightly clownish figure, unable to eat a bacon sandwich without causing an international incident and with a political style closely modelled on Wallace and Gromit, but actually I was quite wrong. In fact, like the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary of State may need to update his CV. I now realise that he is a heroic figure; the titan of transition.

In fact, I will go further. The Energy Secretary is a modern Clark Kent, whose slightly bumbling, comedic exterior is merely a disguise concealing a range of astonishing superpowers. Think of what he will have to achieve if the UK is, as he promises, to have entirely carbon-free energy in just over five years’ time. He will have to build twice as many pylons and cables in those five years as we have built in the last 10. He will have to get all the transmission infrastructure built on time and reshape the planning rules, or the taxpayer will be forced to pay for wind turbines that stand idle. Like the Greek god Aeolus, this great baron of breeze will need to ensure that the winds blow and contract as much offshore wind capacity in the next two years as in the last six combined. He will also need to ensure that the global price of carbon doubles or triples just to make the sums add up. That is before one considers the effects of unexpected inflation, skills shortages, dependency on foreign energy technologies and intermittency of supply. What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile, the Energy Secretary’s plans for small modular reactors have been delayed while he plunges ahead with his plans to cut off gas turbines and leave us dangerously reliant on expensive foreign energy imports. Those plans are not simply heroic; they are fanciful. They are magical thinking. What is worse, they are likely to be ruinously expensive both for the taxpayer and for the electricity user. It is little wonder that top business and union leaders have come together to describe them as “just not feasible” and “impossible”.

We have been here before with the three-day week of the 1970s, and the result was blackouts and energy rationing. Should we expect that again? This is the rub: power reveals. We are seeing not merely a lack of competence but an Energy Secretary who has still not made any statement on the NESO report that I mentioned. He is deliberately refusing to account for his actions to this House on this foundational matter, and he is holding the Commons in contempt. When can we expect a statement from the Energy Secretary on the NESO report? When will he be forced to come to the Dispatch Box to explain and defend this folly?

[Lucy Powell]

First of all, I join Mr Speaker and others in marking the sad loss of John Prescott. He was a true legend, and one of the best campaigners of our movement. He put climate change and real, meaningful levelling up at the top of the political agenda long before they were fashionable. He was groundbreaking and huge fun, and he will be greatly missed. We send our condolences to Pauline and the whole family. As Mr Speaker said, there will be an opportunity for tributes next week.

I am sure the whole House will also join me in marking Parliament Week, when we open our door on how we work in this place. Today is “Ask Her to Stand” day, when we encourage more women to seek elected office.

Let me take this opportunity to point the House to a motion that I have tabled today, which makes some important changes to proxy votes for Members. One of my priorities as Leader of the House is to make Parliament more family friendly. We have more women than ever in this place, and more parents of small children, those with caring responsibilities and disabled Members. We need to change the way that we do things to reflect the times. I have asked the Procedure Committee to continue its wider review of the proxy vote system, and the Modernisation Committee will consider these issues in due course. However, I have heard from Members that the current system has not met some immediate needs, so I am extending the childbirth, miscarriage or baby loss proxy provisions to explicitly cover complications during pregnancy or ongoing fertility treatment. Under this scheme, reasons for proxies remain confidential and are self-certified, requiring no onerous paperwork. I am making the default for all proxies seven months, and I hope the whole House will welcome that.

The right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) raised a number of issues, but I must say I am losing track of the Opposition’s arguments. They attack our Budget measures, yet they support all the investment. They do not like our decisions, yet they took many of the same ones in government. They duck the difficult issues, yet criticise us for dealing with them. Yes, we have had to make some big choices, but we stand by them because we are on the side of ordinary people, the NHS and public services. We are operating in the interests of economic stability, unlike his party. We will see the impact of the Budget over time, but the Conservatives really must decide whether they support the investment and the extra spending on our public services, or whether they do not want any of it and are against that support.

The right hon. Gentleman picks on the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, but there is not a more accomplished member of the Cabinet. He is driving forward his agenda. He is forthcoming to this House on many occasions, and every time he appears in this House, he wipes the floor with his opponent. Yet again, the Conservatives are on the wrong side of history. We have a very ambitious mission to become a clean energy superpower by 2030—one that we are driving forward. It is vital that we do that. That means taking on some of the inherent issues that they ducked: our infrastructure; the grid; our planning laws; getting the investment where it is needed, which we are announcing that all the time; unlocking new power supplies in nuclear, solar, hydrogen and elsewhere; and establishing Great British Energy, which is well under way, to ensure much needed homegrown production. Taken together, those measures will lower bills, create jobs, and give us the energy security that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government failed to give us.

Is not the truth that Opposition Members are becoming political opportunists? They spent years in government ducking the difficult decisions, leaving a huge black hole and a big mess for us to clean up. Public services were on their knees, strike action was costing £15 billion in lost productivity, pay deals were on Ministers’ desks with not a penny accounted for, and not a single penny was set aside for the compensation schemes. The reserves were spent three times over, and on their watch inflation was at 11%. Living standards fell for the first time in our history under the Conservatives. Now they want to have their cake and eat it at the same time. They want all the benefits from the Budget, but not the hard calls needed to pay for them. In a few short weeks, they have gone from the party of government to the party of protest.

Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House present the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

The business for the week commencing 18 November includes:

Monday 18 November—Second Reading of the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill.

Tuesday 19 November—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, followed by a general debate on the infected blood inquiry.

Wednesday 20 November—Second Reading of the Financial Assistance to Ukraine Bill.

Thursday 21 November—Debate on a motion on strategic lawsuits against public participation and freedom of speech, followed by a debate on a motion on International Men’s Day. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 22 November—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 25 November will include:

Monday 25 November—If necessary, consideration of Lords message, followed by Second Reading of the Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill.

Tuesday 26 November—Second Reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.

Wednesday 27 November—Second Reading of the Finance Bill.

Thursday 28 November—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 29 November—Private Members’ Bills.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Leader of the House.

[Jesse Norman]

Thank you very much indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in wishing a very happy birthday today to His Majesty the King.

The last few days in global politics have been extraordinary, featuring one of the most incredible comebacks of modern times. It was wildly hard to predict, many people have panicked at the possible consequences, and some are still in a state of denial—but even so, I must say that I am delighted to have been appointed as shadow Leader of the House of Commons.

I pay tribute to my immediate predecessors: the Luke Skywalker of the Conservative party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), and the great Obi-Wan Jedi sabre-wielding master—or mistress—of the Despatch Box herself, the former Member for Portsmouth North, Penny Mordaunt. As it was with the Galactic Empire, so it is with the Labour party. Recent events have reminded us of the truth of the ancient saying: power reveals.

So it is with this new Government. What have their first chaotic few months in office revealed? First, we know that they like to say one thing and do another. They talk about supporting working people, but the rise in national insurance will hit all working people. They talk about growth, but have imposed the largest tax rise for a generation, pushing up both interest rates and inflation. Only last week, we saw a reported 64% rise in companies filing for insolvency compared with the same week last year—and that is before all the red tape of the new Employment Rights Bill, which will make it harder than ever to give somebody a job and grow a business.

Madam Deputy Speaker, there is so much sheer incompetence here. To take one example, the Government have raised employer national insurance, lowered the income threshold and increased the minimum wage, all at the same time. No one seems to have noticed that the combined effect of those measures is to raise the cost of hiring an entry-level employee not by 2% but by something closer to 12%. That is a terrible blow, especially to the retail and hospitality sector. I ask the Leader of the House: was that deliberate or just a mistake? Will she ask the Treasury to publish an assessment of the total impact of those three measures before any legislation comes to this House?

Secondly, we know that the Government are willing—even keen—to play the politics of division. They have favoured public sector workers over private sector ones. They have driven away entrepreneurs and business creators. As we have heard this morning, they have been punitive on rural areas. The rise in national insurance puts huge pressure on already struggling rural GPs, care homes, dentists, pharmacists and hospices. Mental health and disability charities have already expressed their deep concern. We heard from the Dispatch Box just now that the Government hear the concerns, but if they did understand them, why have they not done anything so far? Why did they not address those concerns in advance?

Meanwhile, the agricultural tax changes will afflict vastly more farming families than the Treasury estimates—families who work all hours, whatever the season, on very low margins. I can see the embarrassment written all over the faces of Government Members, many of whom represent rural areas for the first—and very likely now the last—time.

Thirdly, we know that the Government seem to have zero appetite to take on vested interests or reform our hugely pressured public services. They have shovelled out cash to their union friends, who have been delighted to stick to their fax machines and similarly ancient working practices. What have the Government got in return for all those millions? No commitments to make any efficiencies whatever. Nor do the Government seem much interested in legislation. They have not presented many Bills and the Bills so far have often included not carefully drafted law, but simply a vague and sweeping arrogation of new powers. This is what Governments do when they do not know what to do.

The Government are even hiding behind the very early presentation of a private Member’s Bill on assisted dying—one of the most sensitive and complex issues that we face. The Prime Minister himself promised Esther Rantzen in March that he would make time to debate these issues, but yesterday he refused the request of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) to give the Bill more time on Report. Will the Leader of the House now give that commitment?

The astonishing fact is that after 14 years in opposition, the Labour party came into office with almost no real plans. Instead, we have a Government who have already lost their way—a Government with no real sense of urgency, and no positive flavour or theme of any kind. I ask the Leader of the House this: we know what and who this Government are against, but what is this Government for?

[Lucy Powell]

I also wish His Majesty the King a very happy birthday.

This is Islamophobia awareness month—a chance for us all to come together to tackle all forms of religious and racial hatred. It is also transgender awareness week, which started yesterday, celebrating our trans heroes. It is a chance to remind ourselves that the trans community is one of the most abused, suffers high levels of mental health problems, and is more likely to be homeless or ostracised.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) on his big promotion to the shadow Cabinet. As I said last week, the Leader of the Opposition does indeed love a tryer, and the right hon. Gentleman’s many talents are at long last being recognised. I also warmly welcome the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) to his place in what I think is his first ever contribution to Business questions in his quite long parliamentary career. I have to say that there has been a slight upgrade in the jokes in comparison with those of some of his predecessors.

I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is a biographer of Edmund Burke, who is seen as a founder of modern Conservatism and modern politics. As such I am very much looking forward to working with him on the Modernisation Committee and the agenda of modernising this Parliament. I cannot promise him that all our dealings will be quite that highbrow, because I am afraid his responsibilities bring other things with them, and he might find himself getting bogged down with the state of the toilets or complaints about the wi-fi, but I look forward to working with him.

May I take this opportunity to thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill? Many colleagues have asked me about the process, and whether there will be sufficient time for further debate and scrutiny of this important Bill, so perhaps I may take this opportunity to explain further some of the issues around it. I know that people care deeply about this issue, and there are strongly held views on both sides. As such, it is a matter for Members to consider personally and freely. I know from the last debate on this issue held in the House that it can be the best of moments for Parliament, with considered, thoughtful and respectful debate. It is not a Government Bill. Similar issues such as legalising abortion and homosexuality have come about via private Member’s Bills in the past, and I believe that is the appropriate way to consider matters of conscience, with a free vote and a neutral Government position.

As the Bill will be the first item of business on 29 November, it is highly likely that the debate on Second Reading will last for the full five hours. That is comparable to proceedings on any other Bill—perhaps longer—and I am sure the House would want that to be the case. Should the House agree to its Second Reading, the Bill would then be considered in Committee, probably for several weeks. The whole House will also have further opportunities to debate and vote on those matters on Report and again on Third Reading, which will not be until April at the earliest.

The Government have a duty to ensure that any Bill that passes through Parliament is effective and can be enforced. That is why if any Bill is to be supported by the House, we would expect to work with the promoting Member to ensure that it is workable. This is a matter for the House to decide, and the Government will implement the will of the House, whatever it so chooses. I hope that will help Members when considering these issues.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about a number of Budget measures, but I am afraid the cat really was let out of the bag this week, because we finally learned that the Conservative party supports all the benefits that the Budget brings, but does not support any of the measures that will pay for them. We are now seeing a return to the magic money tree economics pursued by his predecessor Liz Truss.

We have had to make difficult choices to balance the books, so that there is no return to austerity and so that we can invest in the economy and renew our public services for the long run. I am afraid that the shadow Leader of the House is scaremongering with a number of the issues that he raises. He will know that more than half of employers will see no change at all or will pay no additional national insurance from this package. He failed to mention the important changes we are making to business rates, which will support many high street businesses. He might want to include that in his future calculations. Charities, GPs and other healthcare providers, as has just been said at the Dispatch Box by my hon. Friend the Minister for Secondary Care, have been put in an incredibly precarious position after 14 years of chronic under-investment and mismanagement by the Conservatives. We will do what we can, and further announcements will be made about the distribution of health funding.

I put on record that the NHS has received its single biggest increase in spending power for many years. Is that something that the shadow Leader of the House supports or rejects? I am not clear what his party’s position on the Budget is any more. We have had to make tough choices because of the poisoned chalice and inheritance left by his party. That was once described as a “struggling” economy and “anaemic” growth. Those are not my words, but his.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my view that since Channel 4 barely makes an operating profit, any future economic value is more likely to come from cutting broadcasting and production costs, and there may therefore be little public service role for it if it were to be so treated?

[Mr Vaizey]

I note what the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee says. No doubt under his new remit he will want to make an inquiry into Channel 4. That inquiry might note that Channel 4 has increased its investment in broadcasting by 15%, which is welcome.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

I hope it is in order for me, Mr Speaker, to congratulate the hon. Lady on her recent marriage. She makes an extremely important point. I thought that Taylor Swift’s intervention was well made. As technology changes how we access and buy music, it is important that we put the rights of the creators at the forefront of our minds. This Department, particularly under this Secretary of State, will do everything that it can to preserve the intellectual property rights of creators and ensure that they are fairly remunerated.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

T5. On Saturday, I will have the colossal joy of sitting at Edgar Street and watching the first home game of Hereford football club—the new football club in my constituency. Will the sports Minister join me in congratulating the new club, the Hereford United Supporters Trust and all the fans who have got behind it? Does she share my view that more can be done to crack down on and improve the owners and directors test, which has signally failed so far and which needs to be improved if we are to improve governance in our grassroots football?

[Tracey Crouch]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on all the work that he has done in supporting Hereford United over the past few years. We will look into these issues in further detail, but he has to wait a few more weeks for the support strategy to be published.

English Votes on English Laws

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

I do, but the hon. Gentleman must surely accept that what is being proposed through changing Standing Orders is not an appropriate way of addressing it. As I have already said times without number, I fully accept that several anomalies have been created by devolution, starting in 1999, but the answer to that is not to trash our own procedures in this House.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Carmichael]

No. If we are to take this to its logical conclusion—that is to say, to give a veto to the Scottish Parliament on areas that would currently be dealt with by the Sewel convention—then that will not be reclaimed by Standing Orders; it is the end of the supreme sovereignty of this House. That is why we need a sensible, more reasoned debate for which Standing Orders will always be inadequate.

[Jesse Norman]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Carmichael]

No, I am sorry—I have been generous with my time.

The logic is that we should be considering this, if it is to be considered at all, by virtue of primary legislation. I know that that brings concerns particularly to those on the Treasury Bench, and that the Leader of the House will say that it raises questions of justiciability and reviewability of decisions that would ultimately have to be taken by you, Mr Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Mr Carmichael]

Oh, okay.

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful. Is there not a clear distinction between two things? The first is whether this should be introduced by means of Standing Orders, and the second is what procedure, or method of reflection, the House may go through in deciding how and whether to adopt it, and under what circumstances. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was drawing the House’s attention to the latter point and the apparent lack of a timetable for proper consultation on this issue.

[Mr Carmichael]

The two propositions are not mutually exclusive. There are elements that could be capable of remedy through Standing Orders if we were to have a proper debate. The Government’s proposal goes too far, too fast. In principle, other changes may be possible, as we discussed in government before the general election. I do not completely exclude the possibility of proceeding in that way, but going as far as the Government want to us to go, and within their timescale, brings with it an attendant level of risk that I would consider to be irresponsible in these circumstances.

The last Government discussed whether the proposal could be addressed in a single Bill. If there is a will in the House to consider how it could be done, that would be a much more sensible way of doing it. The Government are saying that we should do it for a year and that it should then be reviewed by the Procedure Committee. I hold that Committee in very high esteem, but the only thing that would happen under that process is an examination of how the system had worked. It would not put a dangerous genie back in the bottle after it had been let out. I think we all know that that is the political reality.

Personally, I am quite relaxed about the use of primary legislation and the justiciability of decisions then made by Mr Speaker. I do not think that anybody in this House should be making any decision that would not stand up to judicial scrutiny. However, if that is to be the block, let us have a proper debate, because it must be possible to use primary legislation to deal with that very point. Surely it is necessary to have a proper description of the boundaries of judicial review and any proscriptions. Frankly, this House has never undertaken such an exercise. Judicial review as a body of law has been allowed to grow like Topsy, led by the judiciary itself.

I am aware that I have already taken up quite a lot of time, albeit with interventions.

Procedure of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Indeed—who is?

I must say to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House—whom I revere as well—that I feel very uncomfortable about the procedure that the Government have adopted, which has allowed only an hour for debate. I think that that is unfortunate, given that we are debating a House of Commons matter. However, I cannot vote with the Opposition, because, unlike my right hon. and hon. Friends, they have displayed a monolithic, partisan approach to this issue, which has demeaned them and, I am afraid, has done no credit to the House either.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I express my sadness and regret that you have not seen fit to call any other Members to speak in support of the motion? [Interruption.]

Today’s Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I just respond to the hon. Gentleman as follows? My strong sense, and I do take advice on these matters, is that what has been said is a matter of taste—[Interruption.] Order. If I felt the need of the advice of the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley),I would seek it, but I am seeking to respond to the point of order. It is a matter of taste; it is not language that I would use, and it is certainly not language that the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) would use. I have responded to him, and I think that we should leave it there.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Progressives everywhere will surely welcome the possibility of a secret ballot throughout a Parliament, but is it not the case that this motion could not have been brought forward earlier without precisely a constraint on the potential freedom of Members to vote as they see fit?

[Mr Hague]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it can been seen in that light: the institution of a secret ballot would be an important strengthening—I will come on to this during the debate—of our parliamentary democracy. I noted earlier that there are Members, particularly Opposition Members, who feel constrained in expressing their views on this question, and indeed, have stayed silent during these exchanges. That is their right, but they do have a fear of expressing their views on this issue, as is very clear from this discussion.

House of Commons Governance

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I echo the sentiments that the Leader of the House has just expressed. I am sure that we all feel the same sense of sorrow on hearing that Lord Brittan has passed away.

I rise to support the motion as a member of the Governance Committee. I little thought at the outset of this process that we would end up where we have, or with as happy and constructive a result. My original goal in tabling an early-day motion on the clerkship nomination was simply to allow colleagues to express their concerns about the nomination, which has now been terminated. This came after my noble Friend Baroness Boothroyd had fired a majestic broadside of her own on the topic, in her own inimitable fashion.

Such are the vagaries of life that, in late August last year, I was in the middle of a series of walks to raise money for two outstanding local charities, the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford and the Midlands Air Ambulance, and I vividly recall standing at the cairn on the top of the Cat’s Back on the Offa’s Dyke path in the Black mountains, looking out over my gorgeous constituency and—if one can imagine such a movement from the sublime to the ridiculous—calling the House of Commons to table my early-day motion from there. That was a very rare example of successful rural mobile telecommunications, although I know that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is even now straining every sinew to improve those communications. But supported by you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and this House, the mysterious alchemy of Parliament has transmuted my original concern and that of others from base alloy into the gold of careful constitutional reform, and for that we have enormous reason to be grateful.

I do not propose to comment in any great detail on the substance of this report, except in one regard to which I shall come. But one key point needs to be made now, and it is a point that we should recall as we continue the debate. It is that the Committee came down overwhelmingly in favour of a single unified service. There is, at the heart of that idea, a balance that must be struck between the accountability to which the Clerk is entitled from the director general and the delineated areas of autonomy that the director general exercises as head of the executive committee. It is in that balance and harmony that the subtlety of the report and the recommendation lies, and it is in the success of that harmony that ultimately the balance of the good management of this House stands to be assessed.

I wish to join colleagues who have acknowledged the brilliance of the Chair of the Governance Committee. He was a model Chairman. Remarkable as it may seem to those who think about how much time he has spent in Cabinets and shadow Cabinets, he cut a comparatively naive and youthful figure as the Chair of a Select Committee. None the less, he did preside over a model of judicious, inclusive and yet rapid consultation. We took evidence from a vast and diverse array of people, which included Mr Speaker and the Deputy Speakers, many colleagues and executives from this House, senior executives from the other House, outside experts, Clerks, our magnificent doorkeepers, security personnel, and our brilliant librarians who struggle to keep us all up to the mark with information. Perhaps the highlight was a fascinating session we had with 60 very thoughtful and committed members of staff across all levels and functions of the House. It will astonish Members to know that the remarkable achievements of the Committee are all the more remarkable given the Chairman’s commitment to the House of Commons gym.

The point came through time and again that the House of Commons is an institution unlike any other. Many people talked about the sheer difficulty of managing 650 autonomous Members of Parliament, each in effect running a small business and responding to their constituents’ concerns. That managerial challenge has been magnified over time by the increased constituency workloads of Members of Parliament; the rising numbers of their staff; heightened security concerns; the drive to make Parliament more accessible; and the need to renew the crumbling fabric of the Palace of Westminster. None the less, many witnesses testified that the House was, in general, well managed. They said that that was increasingly so in recent years.

It is important to note that we also came across areas where improvement was needed. I am talking about areas where we found poor management, unclear or overlapping responsibilities, clashing priorities, slow decision-making, lack of implementation of agreed actions, and inconsistent strategic direction. In particular, the crucial relationship between the senior statutory body, the Commission and the Management Board was not working well. All those matters have been addressed in the Committee’s report.

For me, this experience has served to ram home one key message, which is that the British constitution relies on the effective functioning of Parliament. Time and again, witnesses emphasised that it is the parliamentary function of this House that is, and must ever be, primary. The role of the Clerk is absolutely fundamental. He or she acts as the final word in procedural matters for a host of other Parliaments across the Commonwealth. When I opened the debate on the motion that established the Committee, I said that contrary to popular belief, parliamentary procedure—the rules of the game—is not some pettifogging accretion or irrelevant decoration to the business of government; it is the essence of government. This country is governed by laws, and laws are made in Parliament, and that Parliament is run according to rules and procedure. Without procedure, there could be no government.

In retrospect, I have one, and just one, regret, which it is important to place on the record. Having reflected further, I believe that the Committee could and should have recommended that the name of the candidate for Clerk should be presented in an address by Parliament to the monarch, signed perhaps by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, instead of the present system, which the Committee has left intact, whereby a letter goes to No. 10 Downing street and so to Buckingham palace. This is, after all, a purely parliamentary matter that does not concern the Executive directly at all. An address would be a cleaner and more transparent approach that would not permit a nomination to be made as it was made last year unless Parliament were sitting. I hope that that idea can be revisited by the House in future years.

I think that it is fair to say that I have established a national and perhaps even intercontinental reputation for being a bore about one of our predecessors, Edmund Burke, and the deep insights he still brings to politics and to government. Burke is the Paul Scholes of modern politics: just when the game is fizzling out and the crowd desperately needs a goal, he has an uncanny way of ghosting into the enemy’s penalty area and slotting the ball home. He does so again here. Scattered across his writings, Burke gives us seven tests of reform, seven ways by which we can judge the quality or temper of a given set of political measures over and above how we collectively and individually might feel about them.

For Burke, reform should be early, anticipating the emergence of a problem before its full effect are felt. It should be proportionate to the evil to be addressed to limit collateral effects. It should build on existing arrangements and previous reforms so that it can draw on any lessons learned from them. It should be measured, so that those making the change and those affected by it can adjust their behaviour appropriately. It should be consensual, so that it can be lasting over time regardless of changes of Administration. It should be cool in spirit, to maintain consensus throughout the process of change and, finally, every step of it must be practical and achievable in itself.

The Committee’s recommendations satisfy at least six and possibly all seven of the tests laid down by Burke and I do not think that they can have any higher recommendation than that. This is reform in the spirit of reform.

I conclude by thanking the Chairman of the Committee and my colleagues on it, the Committee staff, who did a superb job, and the Members and staff of the Commons, who will have the thankless task of making these reforms work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The whole House should be grateful to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) for his work on the House of Commons administration, not least for the masterly way in which he summarised current concerns and controversies and how they have been resolved. He also briefly mentioned a slight dysfunction in co-ordination between the two Houses, and I will conclude my remarks with a small and rather sad recent example of that.

The hon. Gentleman said that there is a great difference between the atmosphere of this debate and the debate held on 10 September, and I agree. It is a measure of the success of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), and his Committee, that he has managed to reconcile two apparently irreconcilable views, and that the central question of whether it made sense for the leading procedural expert in the House of Commons also to be the chief manager of the House has apparently been decided.

In my intervention on the right hon. Gentleman I asked what would happen if there was disagreement on a matter concerning management—not procedure—between the new director general and the next incumbent of the office of Clerk. If I understood correctly, he said that it would be decided at a level that was, in a sense, above the two of them, and that it would not be a question of the Clerk overruling the director general on a matter of management that by rights ought to be in the sphere of the director general.

In our debate on 10 September, I suggested that the Committee ask itself four questions. I think we will find that those four questions have now been answered. Should a top chief executive officer be expected to be a top procedural adviser, too? The answer is clearly no. Should a top procedural adviser be expected to be a top chief executive officer? The answer is equally no. Should the two roles be combined by default in the future, as they have been in the past? Should the top procedural adviser be allowed, if the roles are separated, to overrule the top chief executive officer on management matters, or vice versa on procedural matters? I think we have learnt that the answer to those two questions is no as well.

[Jesse Norman]

My hon. Friend is being typically clear and precise, but the answer to the first two questions is not quite as clear as he suggests. The Committee’s decision was that the roles could be combined by one person and had been combined by one person in the past—that is the evidence for it—but that now, for reasons of other commitments and the development of the House, they should be separated.

[Dr Lewis]

I am delighted at the result, even if I do not entirely endorse the reasoning. I wish to say a word of sympathy, if not appreciation, for the situation in which the House of Commons Commission found itself a few months ago. It was faced with either making a single appointment from a very limited pool of top procedural advisers who would become, by default, the director general of the House of Commons—as if by some magical process of osmosis during their rise up the learned ladder of becoming a top procedural adviser they had somehow imbibed the skills needed to be a top chief executive officer or director general—or, alternatively, if it wished to go outside that very limited pool of possible candidates, it had to decide whether it was appropriate for a top manager to sit in the Clerk’s chair without having imbibed, by a reverse magical process of osmosis, the skills required to be a top procedural adviser. That was precisely why the message went out loud and clear, on 10 September last year, that we needed to send for the marvellous negotiating and reconciliation skills of the right hon. Member for Blackburn, to decide once and for all whether the two functions should be separated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Lewis]

In just a moment, but I want to make one more point. I know my hon. Friend is concerned with the constitutional aspects of this matter, but I am concerned with another aspect. The new arrangement will not work unless the individuals who occupy the two posts—I am glad to see the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) indicating his approval—have their respective roles clearly in their minds. If either of them tries to play games of superior status, the new system will not work. We can construct the best system in the world, but if the people who occupy the top posts are not minded to make it work, it will not be a success.

[Jesse Norman]

My hon. Friend shares my view that harmony at the top of the new arrangement will be vital. None the less, there is a very clear arrangement. The Clerk is top dog. The director general reports to the Clerk. The director general has clearly delineated responsibilities: the managerial delivery side. That is the unified structure that has been created and will hopefully be agreed.

The training of the Clerks—I have no interest in revisiting this, and we have generally taken the view in the debate that we will not do so—has not been ignored in previous years, although the Committee came to the view that it could be strengthened. The training of the Clerks has so far enabled the Clerk Assistant to run a department that is roughly 40% of the whole. These people do not arrive at their jobs by some mystical process; there is some structure of responsibility and training by which they achieve their posts. The Committee has decided that that needs to be extended, providing a further rationale for the separation.

[Dr Lewis]

My hon. Friend is fighting a gallant rearguard action for the old guard, but if the degree of management skill imbibed previously led to this spectacular spaghetti junction of an organogram of the existing system, there was something deficient in the in-house management training. Any Committee that comes up, by contrast, with something as clear and sensible as the new—

Select Committee on Governance of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the Speaker’s announcement on 1 September of a pause in the process of appointment of a new Clerk of the House and Chief Executive, to give time for further consideration; and accordingly determines that:

(a) there shall be a select committee, called the House of Commons Governance Committee, to consider the governance of the House of Commons, including the future allocation of the responsibilities for House services currently exercised by the Clerk of the House and Chief Executive;

(b) the Committee report to the House by 12 January 2015;

(c) the Committee shall have the powers given to select committees related to government departments under paragraph 4(a) and 4(b) of Standing Order No. 152;

(d) Mr Jack Straw be the Chair of the Committee;

(e) the Committee shall consist of seven other backbench members, to be elected by parties in the proportion of three Conservative, two Labour and one Liberal Democrat, together with one representative of the other parties represented in the House; the parties shall forward their nominations to the Chair of the Committee of Selection by 14 October and any motion made in the House on behalf of the Committee of Selection by the Chair or another member of the Committee shall be treated as having been made in pursuance of Standing Order No. 121(2) for the purposes of Standing Order No. 15(1)(c).

It is an honour to open a debate on a motion to which so many distinguished Members have added their names—the co-sponsors include the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), the right hon. Members for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) and for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart)—and which has commanded support at all levels throughout the House.

The role of the Clerk of the House dates back to at least 1363. Today, the Clerk serves, first, as the House’s adviser on all aspects of procedure, practice and privilege and as the editor of “Erskine May”; secondly, as the chief executive of the House service and chair of the management board; and also, importantly, as accounting officer, as corporate officer, and as the head of the Clerks department, responsible for some 800 members of staff.

The motion is straightforward. It welcomes the announcement by the Speaker of a pause in the current recruitment to the post of Clerk; it establishes a new time-limited Select Committee to consider the governance of the House; it nominates the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) as Chair of that Committee; and it outlines the powers of the Committee, its reporting date and the election of its members. The debate arises because of widespread concern among Members in all parts of the House that the process governing the appointment of the next Clerk of the House was seriously flawed.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

I should be delighted.

[John McDonnell]

I merely ask for clarification. Does the hon. Gentleman see the new Committee as a time-limited exercise, or as a permanent body?

[Jesse Norman]

As the motion makes clear, the Committee will be time-limited and report in January next year.

There has been some misunderstanding, and much heated discussion, of the clerkship. Those are issues to which I have no desire to add, but the following facts are not in dispute. First, the chosen candidate, Ms Carol Mills, an administrator in the Australian Parliament, was not qualified for the specifically constitutional and procedural functions exercised by the Clerk. Secondly—

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jesse Norman]

I am very pressed for time. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not mind if I allow him to intervene later, perhaps at the end of my speech. We are under tremendous time pressure.

Secondly, Ms Mills was and, indeed, is herself subject to an inquiry by the Australian Parliament. Thirdly, the Speaker’s panel of selection was purely advisory, and was smaller than, and assembled on a different basis from, that used in 2011. Fourthly, the terms of the process of recruitment changed from the original terms set out by the House of Commons Commission on 30 April 2014. Fifthly, while acknowledging the Clerk’s executive functions, the advertisement for the post in The Sunday Times led with, and specifically emphasised, “constitutional matters” and the Clerk’s role as

“chief adviser to the Speaker, the Leader of the House and other members of the Front Bench on matters of procedure and privilege”.

Sixthly, outside headhunters, Saxton Bampfylde, were used for the first time. Seventhly, despite all that, the final candidate—Ms Mills—was, in effect, recruited for a job that did not then exist as such, that of chief executive of this House. Finally, the letter nominating Ms Mills was signed by the Speaker on the advice of the panel, was sent to 10 Downing street during the recess, and, but for the intervention of Parliament, might have been forwarded to Buckingham Palace during the recess.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has put this motion before the House today. Is he aware that I understand from an answer to me that the panel was completely unaware that Carol Mills was undergoing investigation—two investigations, actually—by the Australian Senate before it made its decision? Moreover, Saxton Bampfylde wished to inform the panel that that was the case, and the panel was advised not to take evidence from it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. There are lots of speakers on the list, including the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), who I want to get in early on, so we must have very short interventions.

[Jesse Norman]

I was not aware of that, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising it now.

The Speaker has made clear his personal support for a split between the roles of Clerk and chief executive. In a statement to the House last week he called for the issues of a pre-appointment hearing and a possible split in roles to be examined and the views of Members to be solicited in detail. This debate, and the governance Select Committee and procedure for wider consultation proposed in the motion, are the House’s response to that request by the Speaker.

The proper governance of this House is a matter of enormous public importance. Indeed, it is properly considered a constitutional matter, first, because the British constitution—at least such as it is for the next eight days—relies on the effective functioning of Parliament and, secondly, because this Parliament, and especially the Clerk, act as the final word on procedural matters for a host of further Parliaments across the Commonwealth.

Contrary to popular belief, parliamentary procedure—the rules of the game—is not some pettifogging accretion, or irrelevant decoration, to the business of democratic government; it is the essence of democratic government. This country is governed by laws, laws are made in Parliament, and that Parliament is run according to rules and procedure; without procedure, there could be no government. Indeed, even the role of chief executive has a constitutional dimension, because the capacity of Members to hold the Government to account rests in part on how well they are enabled to function by the House service.

Because of the importance of this subject, the House has regularly sought to assess the quality of its own governance. Three times in the last 30 years it has invited outside experts to lead a process of review: Sir Robin Ibbs, Mr Michael Braithwaite and Sir Kevin Tebbit. No institution is perfect, of course, and some of their criticisms have been stringent. Even so, those reviews have identified a fairly clear, if inconsistent, path of reform and modernisation.

The first such review, the Ibbs review of 1990, painted a pretty damaging picture of administrative incompetence:

“Good financial management systems and the associated control mechanisms did not exist. There was no effective planning, measurement of achievement against requirement, nor assessment of value for money.”

The Braithwaite review in 1999 acknowledged the constitutional significance of a properly resourced and effective Parliament. It recognised that

“the Ibbs team found a situation which was profoundly unsatisfactory in terms of responsibilities, structure and operation.”

It acknowledged that significant progress had been made, but at the same time it made clear that

“full implementation of Ibbs was slow and in some areas did not occur.”

The Tebbit review in 2007 was rather more encouraging. It concluded that:

“The present system is certainly not broken”

and that it was “well regarded overall”. It mentioned

“effective management of delivery and services”,

adding it was

“highly effective in core scrutiny and legislative functions”,

but it made a crucial exception for the management of the estate and works. It recommended steps to improve integration, transparency and clarity of management goals, and to create a stronger finance function and greater professional management across the board.

To those, we may perhaps add one last data point. In the recent debate on the retirement of the last Clerk, Sir Robert Rogers, the House was united not only in acclaiming the merits of Sir Robert himself as Clerk, but in acknowledging the progress the House had made in key areas of management and modernisation. Those include implementing a substantial savings programme without loss of service, the introduction of new IT and a drive towards paperless working, far greater outreach and significant improvement on issues of diversity and equality, as well as a new apprenticeships programme.

The Chair of the Finance and Services Committee, the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), aptly summarised the situation by recognising

“a transformation in the management of the House Service, which has moved from what could be described as an era of gifted amateurism to one of thoroughly competent professionalism.”—[Official Report, 16 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 901.]

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I recently had the privilege of attending an international conference on modernising parliaments. Although we have made progress in this country, we are behind many other countries. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need to keep moving forward and to ensure that whoever is appointed is the right person to drive forward change?

[Jesse Norman]

I regret that I was not at that conference, and I am unfamiliar with the comparisons that might be made, but I absolutely agree that continued progress in modernisation and management is important.

[Mr Frank Field]

Surely we do not want modernisation for modernisation’s sake. We want it so that we can carry out our major functions more effectively. They are to hold those on the Treasury Bench to account and to conduct an intelligent five-yearly election campaign.

[Jesse Norman]

I think the right hon. Gentleman knows that, as a strict Burkeian, I—along with many Members of the House—believe in intelligent reform. I therefore broadly share the perspective that he offers.

I believe that we can draw a number of conclusions from this matter. First, it is facile and mistaken to argue that the House is poorly managed today simply because it was poorly managed in the 1980s and 1990s. Rather, there has been steady if somewhat inconsistent progress against a background of massive growth in demand for House services, significant change in information technology, and rising standards and expectations both from Members and from the general public. It would be a tragedy if that process of improvement and modernisation were to be set back by an obviously flawed appointment to the present clerkship.

These reviews have come at eight to nine-year intervals, and the proposed governance Committee would report next year, eight years after the Tebbit review. This debate therefore falls at a highly opportune time, and doubly so because circumstances and the needs of Members and of the general public, as well as politics and Parliament itself, have continued to evolve—and might, I fear, evolve further next week. A specific challenge is presented by the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster. This mammoth project might, it seems, be managed by a specific delivery authority that is accountable to this House and the other place.

As the motion makes clear, a key issue to be addressed by the Committee is whether the roles of Clerk and chief executive should be split. The Ibbs, Braithwaite and Tebbit reports all came down against a split, but it is absolutely right that the issues here should be re-examined by the Committee in the light of changing needs and circumstances. I suggest that that question rests in turn on the answers to several further questions. If the roles are to be split, how exactly would the split work? What functions would fall on either side of the divide, and why? Presumably, in any scenario, the Clerk would continue to be responsible for the Clerk’s department of 800 people, or just under half the total employed.

Furthermore, would the Clerk and the chief executive be coequal? That would require careful thought, as there are cases in business where such an arrangement has succeeded, and cases where it has failed. If they were not coequal, who should report to whom? Would the Clerk, authorised and protected by letters patent, report to the chief executive, or would the chief executive report to the Clerk—in which case what, apart from the job title, would have changed? What would be the implications for relations between the Houses? What legislation would be required if the Clerk were no longer to be corporate officer? Finally, what would the cost be of such a split, in both salary and other costs?

Let me conclude with two reflections. The first concerns the present nomination. The letter nominating Ms Mills as Clerk was signed by the Speaker, on advice. Constitutionally, he and he alone has the capacity to withdraw that letter. I would request that he now do so. The second concerns the process of selection. The Tebbit review in 2007 recommended that the clerkship be subject to the selection board process used to select permanent secretaries, but that approach was not adopted. Whatever its merits, I would ask that, perhaps after the report of the Committee, the House of Commons Commission reconsider, agree and publish new proposals for a fully open, competitive and transparent selection process for the clerkship.

Reform of the governance of this House is, like marriage in the words of the prayer book,

“not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly...but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly”.

This motion is designed to enable sober reform, and I commend it to the House.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

It falls to me in the very few seconds that remain to thank all Members across this House for their extraordinarily wise and thoughtful contributions. I am grateful to the Government and Opposition Front Benchers for supporting the motion. Mr Speaker called, rightly and wisely, for good will and consensus; we have seen those things tonight and for that we should all be profoundly grateful.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House welcomes the Speaker’s announcement on 1 September of a pause in the process of appointment of a new Clerk of the House and Chief Executive, to give time for further consideration; and accordingly determines that:

(a) there shall be a select committee, called the House of Commons Governance Committee, to consider the governance of the House of Commons, including the future allocation of the responsibilities for House services currently exercised by the Clerk of the House and Chief Executive;

(b) the Committee report to the House by 12 January 2015;

(c) the Committee shall have the powers given to select committees related to government departments under paragraph 4(a) and 4(b) of Standing Order No. 152;

(d) Mr Jack Straw be the Chair of the Committee;

(e) the Committee shall consist of seven other backbench members, to be elected by parties in the proportion of three Conservative, two Labour and one Liberal Democrat, together with one representative of the other parties represented in the House; the parties shall forward their nominations to the Chair of the Committee of Selection by 14 October and any motion made in the House on behalf of the Committee of Selection by the Chair or another member of the Committee shall be treated as having been made in pursuance of Standing Order No. 121(2) for the purposes of Standing Order No. 15(1)(c).