Private Members’ Bills

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend is a far greater expert in parliamentary affairs than I will ever be, and I would willingly give all 13 days in a parliamentary Session to him so he can bring forward sensible legislation to improve the life of our nation. The point he makes is incredibly powerful.

I am a bear of little brain—I am not, I am afraid, an accountant or a lawyer—but I believe that there are 52 Fridays every year, while 13 Fridays are normally listed for private Members’ legislation. Members therefore have plenty of Fridays to devote to tending to the needs of their constituents. The idea that we have to sacrifice a large proportion of those 13 Fridays to enable more constituency days is misguided. The real reason for this is that the Executive do not want Members bringing forward ideas that the Government do not control, and which, according to them, might possibly get out of control. That is a big mistake.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Surely for those people introducing Bills and legislative change the proceedings on Fridays are an extension of representing their constituents here and making the changes they want.

[Mr Hollobone]

Those wise words from across the Irish sea are extremely welcome, and it would be great if more Members of this House thought that way. I know that the hon. Gentleman is an assiduous attender, who stands up and speaks up in this place on behalf of his constituents. He is not frightened of scrutinising legislation, and private Members’ Bills are all part of that parliamentary process. Each of us, no matter what party we represent, is the only person from our constituency entitled to sit in this Chamber and speak up on behalf of our constituents. If we can do that to good effect on those 13 Fridays, more power to our elbow.

Mention has been made of the late, great Eric Forth, who was an outstanding parliamentarian. One of Eric’s great attributes was that although he did try to scrutinise private Members’ Bills in great detail, he would not have been in favour of reducing the number of parliamentary Fridays. He would have said that it is everyone’s right to try to introduce legislation, but that legislation must be scrutinised effectively in this place. We heard a comment earlier about the difficulties of Bills making progress, but the point of this place is not to make progress with Bills: it is to scrutinise them and to allow their passage once they are in a fit and proper shape. I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) will demonstrate that to good effect this Friday, given the years of work he has put into honing his legislation in fine detail, and ensuring that every nook and cranny has been explored and every possible difficulty ironed out. If Parliament did not exist, we would not be able to scrutinise legislation in that way, which is why these private Members’ Fridays are so important.

Parliamentary Allowances and Short Money

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) on securing the debate and on the way that he introduced it. We are fully aware of the strong views held on all sides of the argument, but he has expressed his view on behalf of his party extremely well. I am also pleased that he has the support of his colleagues who intervened—the hon. Members for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) and for Upper Bann (David Simpson). The matter of allowances for elected Members who do not take their seats has always been controversial. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I cover the same history that he mentioned in his remarks, but it is crucial to our understanding of where we are in relation to allowances.

The matter was first raised by Sinn Fein in 1997 with the then Speaker, now Baroness Boothroyd, who clearly and explicitly upheld the long-standing convention that Members who did not take their seats should not have access to the House’s facilities on the grounds that the House does not permit what she described as “associate membership.” That decision was subsequently upheld by her successor as Speaker, now Lord Martin of Springburn, following the 2001 election.

In December 2001, the House debated and agreed a motion to permit elected Members who had not taken their seats to have access to the House’s facilities, including allowances, to support them in their representative work on behalf of their constituents. On 8 February 2006, a similar decision was taken on representative money, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred and which is analogous to Short money. That resolution provides for the payment of

“expenses wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the employment of staff and related support”

to parties represented by elected Members who choose not to take their seats, and by statutory requirement, political parties whose Members do not take their seats are not eligible to receive policy development grants. As the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, Members who do not take their seats cannot have parliamentary duties; none the less, they are the elected representatives of their constituents and have representative duties in which the provision of allowances is intended to support them, on the basis that the House previously agreed.

As we are all aware, there has been a much wider debate on allowances over the past year. The Committee on Standards in Public Life recognised when it reported in November that the decisions on allowances for elected Members who did not take their seats were political, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out. The previous Government promoted the arrangements specifically—it would appear—to support the political process in Northern Ireland and to encourage Sinn Fein to play a greater role in mainstream politics.

The right hon. Gentleman brought up the position adopted by parties in previous debates and before the general election. There are Members who have always opposed the decisions on the grounds that all MPs elected to serve at Westminster should carry out their full duties in representing their constituents, and that includes participating in the business of the House. They have always seen this as primarily a House of Commons issue and agreed with Speaker Boothroyd at the time on “associate membership” of the House. He also said that some Members have always taken the view that the matter should be subject to a free vote—that is, it is for individual Members rather than the parties.

Since the decisions were taken, circumstances in Northern Ireland have changed considerably. We have a new devolutionary settlement, which is at the heart of the peace process. Northern Ireland is now firmly set on the political path, with Sinn Fein Members playing a full role in the Assembly. Though dissident republicans continue to try to undermine those who are committed to the political process, there is no question—I hope and pray—of a return to the troubled decades of violence. As a result, it is time for us to look again at the issue. It is clear that there are real and strongly felt issues of principle under discussion.

The Belfast agreement is clear: Northern Ireland is, and will remain, part of the United Kingdom until or unless a majority of the people of Northern Ireland vote otherwise. Sinn Fein has accepted the consent principle set out in the agreement, and there is therefore no good reason why its Members should not take their seats at Westminster. Whatever arguments were made in 2001 and 2006, they were made in a different political context. Northern Ireland has moved on. The principle for the future must be that all elected Members should take their seats and play as full a role as possible as Members of the House.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Deputy Leader of the House clearly indicated that there would be a change. I am reminded of a book that I studied at school—“Animal Farm”. It said:

“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

It is time that all the animals on the farm were equal, and Sinn Fein has to be equal to the rest of us. If we are accountable to a process as democrats, Sinn Fein is equally subject to it. Reassurance from the Deputy Leader of the House is good news, but can he give us a time scale on how this will work?

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I cannot set out a clear timetable, but if he listens to what I have to say in my later comments, I hope that he will be reassured that the Government take the matter very seriously.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister already made his position clear, although not, I suspect, as clear as the right hon. Member for Belfast North would wish. In answering the question from the hon. Member for South Antrim on Wednesday on allowances, he stated:

“My views about this issue are on the record, and they have not changed. I would like to see if we can make the argument. There is not a case for Sinn Fein Members not to take their seats. I think that at the moment we let them off the hook, so I would like to re-examine the argument and see if we can find a new way of doing this.”—[Official Report, 23 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 291.]

In addition to the changes in Northern Ireland, there have also been shifts in the parliamentary landscape that will need to be considered. The creation of IPSA was an essential step in cleaning up politics by bringing to an end the discredited system of self-regulation. Allowances, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, are, of course, now a matter for IPSA, not for the House. However, the right hon. Member for Belfast North is correct in what he said about IPSA’s approach; I understand that it intends to observe the status quo by continuing to pay allowances, but not salaries, to Members who do not take their seats. Last Wednesday, IPSA set out its position as follows:

“a Government motion passed through the House of Commons in 2001 established the position that MPs who do not take the oath may claim expenses related to their Parliamentary business. IPSA regards itself as obliged to follow these motions and intends to do so unless the House decides otherwise.”

A question was raised on how IPSA interprets those decisions in terms of the criteria applied to individual expenses claims. I assume and hope that IPSA will apply exactly the same criteria to a claim from a Sinn Fein Member as it would to any other Member of the House.