Housing and Planning Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I will come on to that specific point in a few moments. I would, however, point out that the hon. Lady and other hon. Members were able to speak on Second Reading and on Report both last Tuesday—through to the early hours—and this afternoon, and that we touched on that very point.

I want to thank Mr Speaker for his careful consideration and certification of the Bill. I also pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House and of members of the Procedure Committee for getting us to this historic inaugural Legislative Grand Committee. I want to put on the record my thanks to the Clerks of the House for their, as ever, excellent service and advice to Mr Speaker and to my Department.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Many Conservative Members welcome some modest justice for England at last. We welcome the fact that at a time when Scotland is being given so many powers of self-government, we now have a small voice and a vote. May I encourage the Minister to go further and make sure that we have justice over money and over law making for England in order to have a happy Union?

[Brandon Lewis]

As ever, my right hon. Friend tempts me to go just a little beyond the Housing and Planning Bill, but I understand his point.

As we all know, the history of this House goes before us, so it is quite rare to see a true first. I am very proud to be the first Minister to stand at the Dispatch Box to address the very first Legislative Grand Committees for England and Wales and for England only.

As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House noted when he opened the debate on Standing Order No. 83L back in October, the process we will now follow has created

“fairer Parliaments and fairer Assemblies”,

giving, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) has just mentioned,

“the English a strong voice on English matters without…excluding MPs from other parts of the United Kingdom from participation in this House.” —[Official Report, 22 October 2015; Vol. 600, c. 1175.]

The purpose of the Legislative Grand Committee is to allow English and Welsh MPs either to consent to or to veto the clauses of and the amendments made to the Bill. I will not detail the territorial extent of each clause and amendment, but I again draw right hon. and hon. Members’ attention to my written ministerial statement of 7 January.

When we discussed the principle of English votes for English laws in the House, we heard fears that it would or could create a class system within the Chamber. As the first Minister to lead a Bill through this process, I am happy to report that that has not been my experience. The debates in the Public Bill Committee and on Report clearly demonstrate that the majority of Members of Parliament support the measures in the Bill. For example, although we did not have the pleasure of their company in the Public Bill Committee, the hon. Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) and for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) ensured that constituents in Scotland were represented during our debate both on Second Reading and on Report. As well as the hon. Lady’s questions about the territorial extent of our new duty on public sector organisations to dispose of land, we have also discussed the implications of landlords or housing associations who may have properties in the devolved Administrations, as well as in England.

My Department is responsible for local authorities, communities and housing associations in England. In many ways, we are the Department for England. It is therefore fitting that the majority of the clauses in Mr Speaker’s certification before this very first Committee relate to England only. However, thanks to Members on both sides of the Chamber, I am satisfied that the House has considered the Bill’s implications for the whole of our United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

How can I resist the right hon. Gentleman?

[John Redwood]

If the hon. Gentleman is such a passionate believer in our settling everything together, why am I not even allowed to express a view, let alone vote, on local government, health and education in his constituency?

[Pete Wishart]

The right hon. Gentleman just does not understand, so I will try to explain it to him patiently once again. We live in the United Kingdom. There is asymmetric devolution within the United Kingdom. We have a Parliament in Scotland that determines and decides the very issues—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Lady has made a creative intervention to put her point directly to the Minister, and I think it deserves a response. All I can say to her from the SNP perspective is that we are going to see lots more issues like that. Confining the EVEL rulings to a Grand Committee means that no consequential issues can be considered by the Speaker in making his certifications. That means that many massive issues will impact on my constituents down the line, but I will not be able to represent them in those matters.

If Conservative Members think they have won and believe that this will not have anything other than a totally detrimental impact on the fortunes of the Conservative party in Scotland, they need to have another think about it. This is unworkable; this is ungovernable; this is a mess; this is unfair. This creates two classes of Members in this House, which is totally unacceptable to my hon. Friends and the Scottish National party.

[John Redwood]

I rise to thank Ministers for taking England on its first step on the journey to justice and fairness for our country. Having participated in recent Parliaments and seen very large powers transferred to Scotland for self-government in accordance with the wishes of many Scottish people and their now vocal representatives from the SNP, I would have thought that on this day of all days it was time for Scotland to say, “We welcome some justice for England to create a happier Union, just as we have fought so strongly for so long for more independence for Scotland.” I hope that SNP Members will reconsider and understand that just as in a happy Union, where there are substantial devolved powers of self-government for Scotland that they have chosen to exercise through an independent Parliament, so there needs to be some independent right of voice, vote and judgment for the people of England, which we choose to do through the United Kingdom Parliament because we think we can do both jobs and do not wish to burden people with more expense and more bureaucracy.

On this day of all days, when Labour has been reduced to a party of England and Wales, having been almost eliminated from Scotland in this Parliament, I would have thought that the Front-Bench—[Interruption.] Our party is speaking for England. The point I am making is that now that the Labour party represents parts of England and Wales but has so little representation in Scotland, it behoves Labour Members to listen to their English voters and to understand that although they might not want justice for England, their voters do want it and are fully behind what this Government are doing.

[Graham Stuart]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the work that he has done for many years in championing the need for EVEL to be introduced. Does he agree that, given that they completely failed to persuade the Scottish people to end the Union, the greatest hope of the nationalists was that such would be the grievance and resentment in England that Scotland could be pushed out? Does he agree that this modest step is a way of alleviating that grievance, and that that is why the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) was quite so angry?

[John Redwood]

I entirely agree. We need fairness for England, in respect of the new financial settlement as well as our legislative procedures, but the way to preserve and develop the Union is to show that it is fair to all parts. I am sure that that will mean greater powers of independence for Scotland than we will gain for England, but we cannot ignore England. England deserves a voice, England deserves its votes, and England deserves, at the very least, the right to veto proposals that do not suit England but only affect England. I think that we shall need fair finances as well, because otherwise the English people will not be as happy with their Union as we should like them to be.

I hope that today is a day on which to advance the cause of the Union rather than to damage it. I hope that it is a day on which other Scots will welcome this small step on the road to justice for England, and will see that it helps them as well as us. What is wrong with England having a voice, its own political views, and some of its own political decision-making, in a Union in which Scotland took a great deal of that following the general election? In that election, all the main parties fought on the united proposition that there should be more rights to self-government for Scotland, but my party wisely said that that meant that there had to be some justice for England too. This is a small step towards that justice, and I hope the House will welcome it and not oppose it.

[John Healey]

We had intended simply to leave the Government to deal with the mess of their own making in this debate; and this debate is about the Housing and Planning Bill. With respect to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), it is not about the Union, or about justice for a part of the Union. This is, quite simply, a motion and a debate about the Housing and Planning Bill.

The rather ridiculous proceedings that we have seen this afternoon, and the over-excitement, underline the flaws in rushing reform of the House without proper consideration, without proper consultation and without proper cross-party agreement. We want, and recognise the need for, a stronger voice for England in this Parliament, but we have always said “a voice, not a veto”, and this Legislative Grand Committee constitutes a veto simply for those Members who are eligible. That should not be happening in this way, in a unified Parliament of the United Kingdom.