Electoral Registration

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Chris Ruane]

I have been instructed to carry on by the Chair.

There are a few issues in the excellent document by the Electoral Commission, “Managing electoral registration in Great Britain”, which was published in June 2012. It gives some performance indicators. However, one of the worrying performance indicators is:

“Performance standard 3: House-to-house enquiries.”

“House-to-house enquiries” involves sending canvassers round, from house to house, to find non-responders. In 2008, 16% of electoral registration officers did not perform that role; in 2009, that went down to 5%; in 2010, there were only 2% of officers not carrying out this essential function to get the registration up; and in 2011, the figure increased by 800%, to go back up to 16%.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

This is obviously a very important issue when it comes to voter disengagement. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that there is also perhaps a role for political parties? When it comes to MPs doing their constituency work, and interacting with their constituents, perhaps whenever that work has been done the MP can say, “Are you on the electoral list and if you’re not, perhaps you can register?”

[Chris Ruane]

Absolutely. It is incumbent upon us all as MPs to do that—no vote, no voice. That issue needs to be considered as well.

May I respectfully ask that the statistics that I have given are sent to every MP, every Assembly Member, every Member of the Scottish Parliament and every Member of the Legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland, as well as to every councillor across the land, so that we get some pressure from below? As well as Governments passing laws from above, we will get some pressure from below. If most MPs realised that their electoral registration officer was not fulfilling their duties, they would be on to them, but nobody knows about these facts and figures. So I ask the Minister if she will use her offices to ensure that this vital information is sent out to all MPs.

I realise that I have a colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), who wishes to speak, so I will—

[Chris Ruane]

Okay. In that case, Chair, I shall go on even a little bit longer. [Laughter.]

Some of the issues pertaining to Northern Ireland have been mentioned by a number of Members—

[Jim Shannon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Ruane]

I will give way on that issue, because I know that my hon. Friend is from Northern Ireland.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman has made that point about Northern Ireland. Just for the record, Mr Owen, I want to say that many people are not registered and those who vote perhaps give an indication in the wrong ballot box—that is my opinion, of course. However, after the disgraceful decision to remove the Union flag from Belfast city hall, the number of people who registered to make a decision and make a change went up greatly. Of course, by that stage it was too late. So, if people want to make a change, vote early.

[Chris Ruane]

Hopefully early, but not often. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

In the case of Northern Ireland, when the changes were introduced in 2006—I admit that they were introduced by a Labour Administration, and that the requirement to have that annual canvass and get out there “on the knocker” was not in place and there was continual registration—registration rates went down in the five or six years afterwards, to 71%, meaning that 29% of people were not registered. If the analysis is made, we will find out that those people, in the main, will be people who live in council houses, or tenants of social landlords, unemployed people or low-paid people, and quite often they will be black or minority ethnic. So quite often these are the people on the margins of society, and as I say there are currently 6 million of them missing from across the UK and the figure for Northern Ireland is proportionally higher than for anywhere else in the UK. So we need to learn the lessons from Northern Ireland if we are rolling out this Bill.

It has been claimed by the Electoral Commission, and I think by the leader of the Liberal Democrats as well, that these changes will be the biggest changes since the introduction of universal suffrage. If they are that big, we need consensus, and if there is not consensus I can promise the Government this—if Labour gets in at the next election, there will be a massive push from Back Benchers and Ministers to undo what has been done.

Labour did not politicise the issue of electoral registration for the 13 years that it was in government. I wish that it had. I was taking the message back to Ministers—Labour Ministers—and saying, “This is a big issue. We have 3.5 million people unregistered.” We could have politicised that issue. If those 3.5 million people ever voted, they would have been our voters. And in fact it was not 3.5 million people; it was 6 million people. If those 6 million people are added to the register, there would be no need for the equalisation of parliamentary seats, because the vast majority of those 6 million people would be in Labour seats. So this issue of registration has massive implications and I urge the Minister, and her team and the Prime Minister, to listen carefully and not to go about this process in a party political way but in a fair, balanced and consensual way.

When Labour came to power in 1997, after we had been out of power for 18 years, the first thing we did was to give away power. We did that by introducing proportional representation for European elections. In Wales, we went from four Labour MEPs to one. That was not in our party political interest. We had a majority of 180 Members of Parliament, and we could have established the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly without PR, but we did not. We could have dominated those institutions, certainly in Wales and Scotland, but we did not— we did things in a balanced way. Again, that worked against us.

What did we do with quangos? They were stuffed with Tories. The quango king of the country lived in my constituency. He was on £86,000 a year in 1996—more than the Prime Minister. What did Labour do? There was no more of that. We took out big, full-page adverts, usually in The Daily Telegraph, asking for good, decent people. We said that things would be non-party political. We gave away power in local government in Scotland. Everything was balanced.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) for securing the debate.

We assume that the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill will complete all its stages at some point and that individual voter registration will go ahead. The Bill will come into force in a period when quite a lot of important things are going on electorally. In Scotland, the process will take place at much the same time as the referendum, which raises considerable issues for electoral registration officers, who will have to manage the processes simultaneously. For the purposes of the referendum, there is a proposal—what happens will depend on the view taken by the Scottish Parliament later this year—to enfranchise 16 and 17-year-olds. If that happens—the Scottish Government have certainly indicated their intention to do it—it will raise procedural questions about how these things are done. Electoral registration officers in my city, for example, could therefore be dealing with a large number of issues at the same time as individual electoral registration.

Like many Members, I think it is important that we put in the effort. The canvass is important. It does not necessarily have to be hugely more expensive, although equally we should not take money away from electoral registration officers. We need to know where the effort needs to be put in, and if electoral registration officers do not know, they need only ask political parties, which can certainly tell them, because the differences in electoral registration in different parts of our constituencies can be extremely stark. We can almost predict where the low registration will be before we go into certain streets and start looking at the electoral register to discover just how many households are missing from it. Armed with that knowledge, we could concentrate on areas where we already know there is a shortfall. Things will only get worse—there is no doubt about that—so we need to concentrate on certain places.

We may need to think laterally about making it easier for people to register. For example, I was out knocking on doors at the weekend and the Member with me pointed out that several of the apparently unregistered houses belonged to council tenants. How did we know that? We knew what kind of new doors the council had recently put on those houses, and we took a bit of guess, albeit it was a fairly safe deduction. Those people had probably moved into those properties relatively recently. New tenants go through various processes with the council: they sign tenancy agreements and some, but not all, apply for housing benefit. That is an ideal opportunity to register people at the same time. People have to do a lot of things—they sign up for the electricity and other things—so why not make electoral registration part of the process, so that they can automatically register as they take up their new tenancy?

Often, it is those very people who come to our surgeries—they are certainly coming to my surgeries at the moment—and say things like, “I’ve just had this letter saying I’ll have to pay something towards my rent from April. I’ve never heard anything about this. I don’t know anything about this.” They see these things as politics, but politics is, of course, about things that happen to them. Once people realise that, they begin to be get a bit more interested, but no doubt some of the people who come to see us and are very angry are not registered. We therefore need to think about making electoral registration as straightforward as possible.

We could go into schools to register young people; that is not at all unreasonable, because once people are registered, the forms will continue in future years. I do not see why it is not possible—this was raised previously—to allow people to register quite late in the election run-up. When there is an election, people’s minds turn to registration. With modern technology and the ability to deal with late registration, we could perhaps let people register virtually up to the election, as happens in parts of the United States. If we do that, people who become interested and who see that the election matters will not find themselves unable to vote. I have known people turn up at a polling station only to discover to their horror that they are unable to vote. At times, they get very angry about that, because they have been fired up by what they have heard.

One thing that is slightly worrying to somebody who sat through the debates on the Bill and who is a member of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform is that we are now hearing that the situation in Northern Ireland is not as rosy as we were led to believe. The Select Committee looked at the issue and took evidence on it. We were aware that there had been a fall-off in registration initially, but we were given repeated assurances, first, that it was a temporary phenomenon that had been overcome and, secondly, that the rest of the UK would learn from the process and not make the same mistakes. Now, however, we hear that it might not be such a temporary phenomenon. That may be because there was concern at the outset, so extra effort was made to improve the position, but that declined again when the foot was taken off the pedal, which clearly shows that we have to keep putting in the effort. That is a matter of some concern because of the assurances we were given. Those of us who raised concerns about the Northern Ireland situation were told that we really had nothing to worry about, that it had been resolved and that things were moving forward much more successfully. That is not the case.

In the lead-up to the changes, the Government need to look carefully at improving registration levels, which clearly are not good enough in some places. That would be necessary even without individual voter registration. That may require electoral registration officers to work far more closely with their fellow local government employees, laterally in relation to council housing, but there is also housing association housing. They might even work with some private landlords to see whether a link can be made, because that group of tenants is probably the most mobile and they are the ones falling through the hole.

Once we have all the household figures from the most recent census, which have not been published yet, we will clearly see what we know anecdotally from our own areas, which is how much more private renting there is now than there was even 10 years ago. That is such a mobile population that it is probably a major factor in reducing levels of electoral registration. How can we make contact with people when they move in? Can we find ways whereby electoral registration officers do not sit somewhere, isolated, but work with letting agents, perhaps, to make the forms available?

[Jim Shannon]

One of the problems with the Northern Ireland process was that the data-processing system was not working correctly, so the information was not all collated. One of the reasons for that was the funding. Wherever a data-matching process is set up, bringing all the different bodies, benefits and rent allocations together, it should show where the person is, but it does not always work that way unless there is funding to ensure that that the data-matching process takes place. That is a lesson that has been learned in Northern Ireland. The system has not worked. It must work better.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment and insight into problems that have arisen. There are dangers in relying on a technological answer. As we found with some of the data-matching pilots, different organisations record things very differently, although perhaps that should not happen; the technology does not always work; addresses are not always referred to in the same way. Such small differences mean that although the technology should make it possible to identify where a person is, even if they were not previously on the register, that may not happen. A small difference in the description of the address is enough for the technology to let people down.

There is nothing better than the individual approach, and we should not rely on technology to perform that task. Technology has a place, and if it makes certain things easier, all well and good. It may provide a base to start from, but it is wrong to assume that it will somehow get us out of the problem. Getting out to people where they are—for example, by having an electoral registration officer sitting in a supermarket with a stall and forms to catch people while they are there—is not a bad idea. There are all sorts of ways to engage better with people. I hope that that will be taken seriously, that electoral registration officers will be given the resources and information they need, and that good practice will be shared so that that can happen. Otherwise things will get worse. It is deeply depressing to go to what I suppose in my constituency is a typical tenement building and to find that of perhaps eight or 10 residences, barely half are registered, even under the present system. It is not good enough.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

My hon. Friend is hugely respected across the House and outside it for his splendid work on behalf of young people over many years. The short answer to his question is yes, I would be delighted to meet him.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Retired people can work and volunteer with young people in many projects in my constituency, including the intergenerational project in Newtownards in Strangford. One regular problem is the cost of insurance. What help can the Minister give towards insurance costs for those projects?

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. We are actively looking at the burden of regulation on volunteers. I am sure he will join me in welcoming the reform of the Criminal Records Bureau process to reduce the number of people who need checks and to make checks more portable. We are actively working with the insurance industry to see what we can do to reduce the liabilities and insurance requirements on volunteers.

Votes for 16 and 17-year-olds

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss this important issue, and I thank you, Mr Chope, for allowing me to open the debate, in which I will call for the voting age to be lowered to 16. It is a pleasure to do so under your chairmanship.

I am grateful to be granted this debate and to initiate discussion about an issue that many people across the country are currently considering. As Members know, the Scottish Government recently announced that, in the upcoming referendum of autumn 2014, 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to take part in the ballot. That decision to lower the voting age will enfranchise 8.2% of the UK’s 16 and 17-year-olds. The decision has reignited the issue of votes at 16 at a national level.

With that in mind, it seems the right time to reconsider lowering the voting age to 16 in all elections and referendums held in the UK. It would be wrong to send the message that it is right for some of the UK’s 16 and 17-year-olds to be deemed capable of voting while others are not. In July 2012, the devolved Welsh Assembly, in a debate on the issue, voted on a motion expressing support for lowering the voting age to 16 that had cross-party support.

The Minister will know that constitutional reform, including lowering the voting age, is not devolved and, therefore, the responsibility for making that happen still rests with the UK Government. For the sake of a more equal, inclusive political system across the whole UK, the Government and the Electoral Commission must consider extending the right to vote to 16 and 17-year-olds across the country. With recent developments, this seems the opportune time to start revisiting the issue.

In our society, we rightly demand respect from young people and often require them to act and behave like adults. At the same time, however, society should respect young people’s views and aspirations.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to vote would enable engagement with younger people, by allowing the House to hear what they want us to do for them?

[Julie Elliott]

I could not agree more with that valuable point, which I will address.

Some 16 and 17-year-olds hold positions of great responsibility and already contribute much to our society, and they should be given the opportunity to influence key decisions that directly affect their lives and communities. We should ensure that they and their issues are represented.

In law, as a society, we already allow 16 and 17-year-olds to give full consent to medical treatment, to leave school and enter work or training, to pay income tax and national insurance, to obtain tax credits and welfare benefits in their own right, to consent to sexual relationships, to get married or enter a civil partnership, to change their name by deed poll, to become a director of a company, to join the armed forces and to become a member of a trade union or co-operative society. Granting them the vote would align their responsibilities with their rights as citizens. Surely, it cannot be right that we ask a young man or woman to serve their country bravely by joining the armed forces without recognising their contribution or giving them the choice to influence their future in return.

There is an old American saying: no taxation without representation. As a citizen benefiting from this country, 16 and 17-year-olds are expected to pay tax yet, by being excluded from the right to vote, they have no say on how that money is spent. With rights come responsibilities, but it should work both ways: with responsibilities should come rights.

Across the country, 16 and 17-year-olds are demonstrating that they can make such complex decisions and take on wide-ranging responsibilities. They are actively showing, in practice, their willingness to make a positive difference and contribution to our society. We should give them the chance to make a difference by empowering them further through recognising their right to influence decisions that will affect their future. That is also reflected in public opinion. In a recent poll carried out by The Daily Telegraph, 53% of the population said that they are in favour of lowering the voting age to 16.

I pay tribute to the fantastic work of the Votes at 16 coalition on promoting and raising awareness of the issue. The coalition is made up of more than 70 organisations, including the British Youth Council, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, the Trades Union Congress, the Co-operative and the National Union of Students.

Lowering the voting age to 16 would further encourage youth democratic engagement. There are more than 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds in this country.

As the Member of Parliament for Sunderland Central, I often visit schools in my constituency to talk to students and young people about my job and what it means to represent them. The 16 and 17-year-olds I have met on such visits have shown that they are knowledgeable and interested in the world around them—from the Arab spring in the middle east and the effects of climate change to youth provisions in their own neighbourhoods. They are also passionate people: passionate to learn more and to participate. They have demonstrated to me that they are more than capable of engaging with the democratic system, as much as any other citizen.

European Council

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is an alluring prospect, and I am sure that many hands will make light work.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. I refer him to the growth and competitiveness part of it and the sentence about “new safeguards that will protect the interests of those countries outside the eurozone.” The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has strong economic and trading contact with the Commonwealth countries. Will he assure this House that the historic trading links with the Commonwealth will be encouraged to continue and grow within Europe?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Half our trade is with the European Union, but the other half is with countries outside the European Union. In recent years we have obviously seen very fast growth in that trade with some of the fast-growing BRIC countries—the Brazils, the Russias, the Indias and the Chinas—but we also have very strong relations with our Commonwealth partners. We should be encouraging our trade relations with all those countries. There is also the EU-Canada free trade agreement, which is under negotiation and could bring real benefits to both sides.

Patrick Finucane Report

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Everyone has to face up to what they did and what they got wrong. It is up to those people responsible for violence, for terror, for murder to do that; they should apologise for what they did. But let me repeat: we should not put ourselves in this House, in government and in a state that believes in the rule of law, democracy and human rights, on a level with those organisations. We expect higher standards and when we get it wrong, we need to explain and completely open up in the way that we have done today.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement, and I agree with his decision not to have a public inquiry. The Prime Minister is aware of the hurt that runs very deep among the whole of Northern Ireland—among people on both sides. Hurt is not just on one side of the community; it is universal and we all have it. I am thinking of the Darkley gospel hall massacre, when people worshipping God on a Sunday night were killed by republicans; the people killed—burnt to a cinder—and injured by republicans at the La Mon restaurant; the people who were killed and injured by republicans at the Abercorn restaurant as they were enjoying a meal; the Ballydugan killing by republicans of four Ulster Defence Regiment men, three of whom I knew personally. Some £191 million has been set aside for the Bloody Sunday inquiry into the deaths of 13 people. The Prime Minister has mentioned the Historical Enquiries Team, whose budget is £38 million to carry out 3,487 inquiries into murders. What steps has he taken to help the HET do more and get answers for people who have lost loved ones?

[The Prime Minister]

We continue to fund the Historical Enquiries team. I think it does good work and it should continue to do that. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point that whatever terrible event we are discussing, people will always bring up other terrible events and quite rightly say, “Well, what about an inquiry into that? What information can we find out about it?” What is different in this case is that it highlights the appalling level of collusion there was and brings to the surface, effectively, not just one appalling murder but a series of appalling steps that were being taken and that need to be addressed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Yes, and that is why it is so important that we have committed to £20 billion of investment in affordable housing, generating tens and tens of thousands of more affordable homes so that families have an affordable home they can call their own. I also draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the significance of the announcement by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government yesterday that we will be looking at doubling the amount of money in local authority pension funds that can be used to invest up to £22 billion of extra money into local infrastructure. That is the way to make this country fair and to get the economy moving.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Q11. On behalf of my party, may I join in the tribute to the two soldiers, as well as prison officer David Black, who gave their lives last week? Tomorrow morning will mark the 25th anniversary of the Poppy Day massacre in Enniskillen. Twelve lives were cruelly taken and 63 people were injured when the IRA bombed the service of remembrance at the town’s cenotaph. This week, the police received a new line of inquiry. Will the Deputy Prime Minister join me in echoing the survivors’ call for justice and for new information to be brought forward?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman speaks on behalf of us all when he says we should pause and reflect on the terrible suffering of those who now have to re-live, 25 years later, all the memories of that terrible atrocity and those who were killed, injured or maimed. I know that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will be attending the anniversary event. This is an extremely difficult week for all who suffered at that time and have had to live with those memories ever since; and, yes, of course I can confirm that where there are new leads or new evidence, they will be pursued rigorously, and we will provide all support to ensure that that is the case.

Hillsborough

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. There is an entire chapter in the report—chapter 8—on the coroner’s inquiry. There is also an additional entire chapter on the 3.15 cut-off—which is an important point that hon. Members will want to look at carefully—and it seems, from a preliminary reading, to be extremely powerful.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement and for speaking not just for the Government, but for the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We are deeply indebted to him for that. I was aware of some of the issues, but on TV this morning there was one lady who had lost two children and another lady who had lost one child. The rawness of what took place 23 years ago was clear in their faces, and it is clear from the families of the 96 victims, who live with the grief of what took place. Whenever another inquiry or inquest takes place, as it will, what assurance can the Prime Minister give the House that the sensitivity that is needed for the families, who are still grieving today, 23 years later, will be ensured?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and I am sure that the Attorney-General, the Home Secretary and others will listen closely to it. If the decision to hold a fresh inquest goes ahead, clearly an enormous amount of thought would have to be put into where it is held, how it is held and how to deal with what are incredibly sensitive issues after 23 years. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise that, and if that were to happen, we should discuss it nearer the time.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

I have listened with great interest to the number of speeches in which we have been told about the expertise in the other place, how wonderful their lordships are and so on. I wonder why, then, when the results of their deliberations in the other place come down here, we rarely accept anything that they say. I think of the most recent example of the Welfare Reform Bill. There was a great deal of expertise over there and nobody in this House, or very few—certainly among those on the Government Benches—listened to them.

I would have thought that the Liberal Democrats would have been able to come up with a better Bill than this; after all, they have been thinking about it for 101 years. I feel as though I am at a seminar about the Parliament Act. We are talking about an increase in accountability, but in order, apparently, to assuage criticism from those who would argue that the House of Lords should be a forum for the expertise that I have mentioned, which we rarely actually accept in this House, we have before us a proposal to appoint 20% of the new Chamber. This morning, I received the document I am holding, “Lords reform: a guide for MPs”, to which some distinguished colleagues have contributed. As well as a hybrid Chamber and a new electoral system—many other colleagues have mentioned this—we have before us, in this supporting document, the statement that

“members elected in large, multi-member regional constituencies would be able to take a more strategic view of the needs of a whole part of the country. They would not be expected or resourced to take up a litany of individual cases on behalf of constituents”.

I come from Scotland, where we have regional MSPs. I can see my colleagues from Wales nodding in agreement with what they anticipate I am about to say. The reality is that if a politician is shown an electorate, they will react like a politician. They will not say, “Sorry, I cannot deal with that, because I have been elected for 15 years and I am not going to be re-elected.” Of course they will be politicians, and that is what they will do.

I have been in this place for 15 years, which is a long, long time in politics. Many of the people who came in with me are no longer here. I say to those Government Members who think they will still be here in 15 years: in your dreams. I am not talking about your dreams, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I know that you do not dream about the Government Benches.

The Deputy Prime Minister made great play of the new House of Lords, new Senate, or whatever on earth we are going to call it, having greater regional and national representation. He obviously has not looked at or seen the implications of what Lord Strathclyde has said about the way in which it is expected these that new Senators or Members of the House of Lords will operate; as the Joint Committee also said, the new situation should allow individuals to “maintain relevant professional expertise”. The Government have also said that the

“appointed members and elected members should be able to vary their level of participation…so that they can maintain outside occupations”.

So I say to the House: how on earth is an elected Member of the House of Lords from Newcastle, from Scotland or from north of the inner circle of London going to be able to maintain another job and still attend the House of Lords? It is utter nonsense.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the right hon. Lady share my concern, and that of many in this House, that the number of representatives from Northern Ireland is to total three in each period of the legislative change? Does she agree that the history and culture of Northern Ireland, and the sense of self that its people have, is not represented totally in the reform put forward by the coalition?

[Mrs McGuire]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I do not think that the current House of Lords accurately reflects the diversity of the United Kingdom. Although we think that there are Scots everywhere, there are probably fewer Scots in the House of Lords than there ought to be given the percentage of the population—[Interruption.] That is probably so in the House of Lords.

Let me make one or two points which I do not think have been adequately covered. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) makes a very valid point about bishops in the House of Lords. The issue is controversial but, frankly, I do not agree that removing bishops from the House of Lords means that we are automatically talking about the disestablishment of the Church of England. If the establishment of the Church of England depends on 12 bishops sitting in the House of Lords, it is in a worse state than the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks that it is.

There has been a bit of a myth put around for most of the day that the Labour party has always been interested in changing the House of Lords. It has been highlighted that many of our policies related more to abolition than to reform, but the reality is that we have always been more interested in the powers of the House of Lords than in its composition. We have not had any discussion about the powers today. If we change the form of election to the other Chamber, we will change unalterably the balance of the relationship between this House and a second Chamber. We cannot move away from that and no matter how often the Government mention the Parliament Act, it just will not wash. We cannot have a modern constitution for the 21st century based on the relationships in the 1911 Act and we must be far more realistic about the implications of the proposals.

I will vote in favour of Second Reading tomorrow, because I believe in the reform of the House of Lords and this is the only game in town at the moment, but I will also vote against the programme motion on the grounds that perhaps, as the discussion and conversation goes on this House, the Government will have the time to reflect and will knock some sense into the head of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Debate on the Address

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Amess]

I remember that only too well because I happened to be in Japan with the now Foreign Secretary who was then the parliamentary private secretary to the Chancellor; I was the PPS to Michael Portillo, and we got called back. The hon. Gentleman wants to lead me down a track to do with Europe and shadowing the Deutschmark, but I shall not succumb.

I congratulate the Government on the banking reform Bill. Shortly after the election, the Chancellor announced the creation of the Independent Commission on Banking, which was asked to consider structural and related non-structural reforms to the UK banking sector to promote financial stability and competition. Any reforms should be implemented by 2019. No doubt there will be lots of discussion about this legislation, which I hope will at long last bring about fundamental reform of the banking system. It will include the ring-fencing of retail banking and measures on capital adequacy requirements. There will be radical reforms in the Bill which are needed entirely because the Labour Government and the previous Prime Minister completely destroyed the banking sector through what went on with the Financial Services Authority. They should be absolutely—[Interruption.] Some Labour Members, although not all, have a very short memory about what happened at that time. The financial crisis originated in the financial sector and so I believe that regulation is very important. London is the capital of the financial world and we need to lead the globe in these reforms.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the legislation on changes to banking, which we agree with and look forward to. Does he think the banks should be listening to what is happening now so that they can make changes in anticipation of the legislative changes to enable small and medium-sized businesses to acquire the money they should already be able to get but which is being denied them at the moment? We hope the new legislation will give those businesses that opportunity.

[Mr Amess]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Some of the banks have forgotten everything that happened. They are not lending particularly to small businesses and I agree with him that they should act now rather than wait until the Bill becomes an Act.

The right hon. Member for—it is a Welsh constituency —[Hon. Members: “Dwyfor Meirionnydd.”] Well, it is in Wales. I am glad that the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) mentioned the draft Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill. In 2008, the Competition Commission conducted an inquiry into the UK grocery market, because of concerns that supermarkets were exploiting their supply chains. The right hon. Gentleman was spot-on with the points he raised. The draft Bill was published last year and will establish an adjudicator. The right hon. Gentleman expressed some concerns about the powers, and another Member—I think it was the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker)—asked whether they should be in the Bill. It is good that an adjudicator will be appointed, with the power to investigate a grocery firm with revenue in excess of £1 billion if it is suspected of breaching the code relating to its suppliers.

It is vital that we do everything we can to help small businesses in these troubling times of austerity. That certainly includes grocery suppliers that are often family-run local businesses. There is no doubt that the major supermarkets have a monopoly in the United Kingdom grocery market, so I welcome any steps to prevent them from using their powers to leave their suppliers out of pocket.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman is right to mention the importance of having a grocery ombudsman. Over the last three years, 3,000 small businesses related to farming and the supply of large stores have gone out of business. That is a real concern. Does he feel that legislative change will prevent that and does he think it will come quickly?

[Mr Amess]

I believe that the Bill will achieve that end and that it will be effective. I know how tough things have been for farmers, particularly in Northern Ireland.

It is important to have a balanced grocery market, where suppliers get a fair deal. There will be further benefits for consumers, because they will be able to buy the best of British produce, which will make the market more sustainable.

The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), among others, mentioned adoption and family matters. Pro-life Members will have been sad to hear that Phyllis Bowman died at the weekend. With the late Lord Braine, she did iconic work on pro-life matters and I pay tribute to her.

I was delighted to see that there will be a Bill on adoption and family matters. Some years ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) introduced a measure on adoption, but we badly need updated legislation. It will remove the absurd barriers that make the adoption process difficult. A new six-month limit on care proceedings will be introduced in England and Wales, and the law will be changed to ensure that more children have a relationship with their father after family break-up. All Members get letters from constituents about that difficult issue.

I welcome the provision for mothers and fathers to swap their parental leave allowance after the birth of a child. The Leader of the Opposition said that the Opposition would support the measures. The Prime Minister is right to be passionate about giving children a good start in life.

I welcome the measures to deal with the royal succession that were announced by Her Majesty in the Gracious Speech. Very much in the future, when there is a change of monarch we shall have King Charles, but if Princess Anne had been the oldest child she would not have succeeded. Anyone who knows Princess Anne applauds her hard work; she does a wonderful job. I am delighted that there will be a change to the law on royal succession. As a Catholic, I suppose I am biased, but I am also delighted that Catholics will finally be allowed to marry into the royal family.

I am already sick to death of hearing about Lords reform, even before we spend 18 months going on about it. If anyone wants to know what is wrong with the House of Lords, I can tell them that it is the Labour party, which completely messed up the House of Lords without a plan for dealing with it. I do not address my remarks to Labour Members elected in recent years, but it was a bit rich to listen to speech after speech from Labour Members who condemned the House of Lords and everything it stood for, and the next minute accepted a peerage. There is no consistency.

When the Labour Government took office in 1997, they thought for narrow class reasons that they would get rid of the House of Lords—all those hereditaries, all terribly posh—but there was no actual plan for reform. As a Conservative Member of Parliament, I am totally against the Americanisation of our system, so I am opposed to a wholly elected second Chamber, which would definitely be in competition with this place. I agree with the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch, who asked how it could be fair to have Members elected for 15 years. It certainly is not fair. I hope that we shall not waste hours and hours of precious time arguing about House of Lords reform. I know that the Liberals are keen on it—

Police and Crime Commissioners

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David]

Yes, my hon. Friend makes entirely valid points. Nobody is against having a Home Office website with information about the candidates, but that must be as well as, not instead of, other forms of information. I think that the Government have made a mistake here.

The Government have, albeit wrongly, set their face against this proposal, so in the brief time available, I will not go over old arguments. Instead, I want to focus on a number of areas in respect of which I hope the Government will listen and improve their draft legislation. Before I go on to those points, I would like the Government to assure us that the website will be accessible to all and that the information on it will be provided in minority languages. In particular, as a Welshman, I would hope that a Welsh language version of the website will be available and that Welsh language speakers will be available for the helpline. Perhaps the Minister can provide information about that. I also hope that the information will be provided in alternative formats—in Braille or in large print, for example. I shall now move on to focus on other areas where the Government could improve their draft legislation.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman feel that the election of a police or crime commissioner should be based not on popularity alone, but on experience, ability and years of service? Does he have any thoughts on how that could be brought into the process in such a way that the bright person gets the job because they have the ability to do it well?

[Mr David]

I think it is important that the electorate know what the position involves and the job entails, as well as the qualities of the individuals being put forward. I am a democrat; I have faith in the electorate to make the appropriate decisions, provided, of course, that they have been given the appropriate information on which to base their decisions. That is why I believe this debate is so important.

To return to the specifics of the draft legislation, under the Government’s plans, police area returning officers—PAROs for short—will accept or reject material from candidates standing for election on 15 November. They will check and approve the material they receive, and then pass it on to the Home Office so that it can publish that material on its website. It is pretty clear to me that this will be a sensitive role for these officers, so I urge the Government to ensure that the criteria by which PAROs have to assess the material are set out clearly and in detail—much more clearly, I would suggest, than in the draft secondary legislation.

Secondly, the Electoral Commission will, to its credit, produce a booklet for every household where PCC elections are taking place. This is particularly important because the elections will take place at an unfamiliar time of year in November, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) has said, and using a voting system—the supplementary vote system—that most people will not have used before. May I have an assurance from the Government that sufficient resources will be provided to the Electoral Commission for this information dissemination work to be carried out properly?

Generally, it is essential that guidance for candidates, agents, campaigners and returning officers is provided well in advance of the elections in November. The Government should note that the Electoral Commission wants most of these guidelines in place very soon so that they can be published and disseminated widely three months before the start of the regulated period. Of particular concern is the need to publish the limits on the amount of money that PCC candidates can spend during the last few weeks of the campaign, and I would hope that the spending limit for each specific police area—not a complicated calculation and a formula—is set out on the face of the secondary legislation. That is the way to ensure clarity.