Sittings of the House

Jim Dowd Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

As has been pointed out, there are Select Committees that meet earlier and that seem to manage to arrange for witnesses to attend.

The argument for earlier Tuesday sittings, as well as standing on its own merits, provides the opportunity to move the debates on private Members’ Bills to Tuesday evenings. As a Back Bencher, I believe in the importance of our having the opportunity to drive change through the House. Although I acknowledge the other options that the Chair of the Procedure Committee shared with us, moving those debates to a Tuesday evening would give many of us a greater opportunity to attend.

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

When we first had sittings on Wednesday mornings, I was the Government Whip responsible for private Members’ Bills. I suggested then—this was before we had sittings in Westminster Hall—that we could move private Members’ Bills to Wednesday mornings. We opened up Westminster Hall to make that easier. The reason I made that suggestion was that if we debated private Members’ Bills during the normal sitting week, it would make it easier for the Government. Is that what my hon. Friend is proposing?

[Paul Blomfield]

Not for one moment.

As has been pointed out, there are options on how we deal with private Members’ Bills. It is unreasonable that at the moment, those of us who plan our diaries so that we have constituency time on Fridays have to choose between going to our constituencies and attending the House to support private Members’ Bills, whether of our own volition or because we have had representations from our constituents to be there. Over the past two years, I have done that on three occasions. Frustratingly, on each occasion the Bill was talked out. I fear that if we do not agree to change our Tuesday sittings, we will exclude one important way in which the Procedure Committee might address the issue, because the slot will not be available for private Members’ Bills. There are stronger arguments than that, but it is one dimension of the argument.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I do not understand my hon. Friend’s approach to this. When I first came here we had a five-day week, and Government business alternated with private Members’ Bills on Fridays. I do not want to be arrogant or patronising, but I think I look after my constituency as well as any Member, and I can do it in the hours that we used to have, let alone the current ones. I can get to my constituency and do my jobs. I had eight engagements last weekend, and I managed to fulfil them without having family-friendly hours at the House of Commons.

I have a duty to be in my constituency, but I was elected to come here and represent my constituents. I am a Member of Parliament, not partly a Member of Parliament and partly for hanging around.

[Jim Dowd]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the House has spent the whole of this week discussing things that do not matter to our constituents at all?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I agree totally. I have surgeries every weekend, and I have people coming to see me who have hardly any money to live on. I have just had letters from constituents in the same situation. It is my job to try to help them against a Government who do not care about them. The very idea that we should spend two days in this House of Commons talking utter and total rubbish about reforming the House of Lords, when people are anxious about their jobs, their NHS and their pensions is absolutely sickening. Now we are spending a whole day debating the House and hon. Members are absorbed by it, offering all kinds of different useful formulae to make this place more attractive to Members. When my father worked at Montague Burton’s tailoring factory in Leeds making suits and clothes, he was not given a chance to make his work more attractive for him. He was bloody lucky to have a job at all.

We are lucky to be here and to have this marvellous opportunity to speak for our constituents, and we are paid very well indeed. Millions of people cannot believe how much hon. Members are paid when they are paid so little—assuming they are not on benefits. It is therefore about time the House stopped this navel gazing. Our job is to hold the Government to account; it is not to say, “I want a tidier and more useful day. I want to be able to get home on a Thursday afternoon.” If hon. Members want that, I suggest they find another career.