Fixed-term Parliaments (Repeal) Bill

John Stanley Excerpts

Friday 6th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I am very glad to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan) and the, to my mind, wholly persuasive case he made for the repeal of this legislation.

I should hold my hand up right at beginning. Like, I am sure, most if not all of us here, I think there are votes that with hindsight we regret. I did vote Aye on Second Reading of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act Bill, believing that it was an issue that was worthy of debate in the House, but I am glad to say that I abstained and refused to support the Government on Third Reading.

The case that is made for fixed-term Parliaments rests in part on the assertion that if the Prime Minister is able to pick his or her spot to hold a general election, they can do so to the best party political advantage of their own party. The falsity of that argument was of course conspicuously demonstrated in February 1974, when Ted Heath decided to go to the country on “Who governs Britain?”, and the electorate in their wisdom decided three weeks later: “Not you, Ted.”

I had very valuable and close personal experience of another such demonstration of the falsity of the argument in 1978, when I was Margaret Thatcher’s parliamentary private secretary. We began our usual weekend tour in a washing machine factory in Somerset. At about half-past ten, I had to extract Margaret from her characteristic scientific and housewifely close inspection of a washing machine to tell her that No. 10 had just announced that Prime Minister Jim Callaghan would be making a ministerial broadcast at six o’clock that evening. It was, of course, an electrifying moment. The news could mean only one thing: the Prime Minister was going to call a general election.

So the day proceeded, with mounting excitement. There were hugely growing crowds wherever we went, and a hugely increased number of television crews. Margaret always had a profound sense of Conservative party history, and we ended up, ready to deliver the programmed evening speech, in Tamworth. There we were, at 5.59 pm, in Margaret’s suite at the hotel, when, on the dot, the expected courtesy call came through. The operator said “The Prime Minister’s private secretary is on the phone. He wishes to speak to Mrs Thatcher.”

Margaret, with wonderful aplomb, deputed her diary secretary, Caroline Stevens, to take the call. Caroline took the call, which was very brief, and then said “Mrs Thatcher, the Prime Minister’s private secretary has asked me to tell you that at six o’clock the Prime Minister will make a broadcast announcing that he is not going to call a general election.” No such ministerial broadcast had ever been made before, and I do not think one has been made since.

If Jim Callaghan had gone to the country in October 1978, would he have won? At the time, most of the pundits agreed that it would have been a very, very close-run thing. But, as we all know, after the winter of that year—the winter of discontent—Jim Callaghan’s Government was dead in the water by the following May.

The question with which the Bill presents us is this: what is the right choice once the Government of the day have lost the confidence of this elected House, by however small a majority? Let it not be forgotten that, when we won a no confidence vote before the May 1979 election, we won by a majority of just one. I am absolutely clear in my own mind about what should not happen in such circumstances. No Government should be perpetuated behind closed doors on the basis of “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”. There should be no negotiations between political leaderships with no reference to the House and with no reference whatever to the electorate.

The crucial democratic principle must surely be that the day when an elected Government of this House lose the confidence of this House, by however small a majority, is the day when it is for the British people and the British people alone to decide the future of the Government in a general election.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

John Stanley Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) has performed a signal service to the House by initiating this debate. I congratulate him on his pertinent and important contribution.

I declare an interest. I am one of the 128 MPs who are no longer able to claim expenses for accommodation in London, even though—my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) rightly alluded to this—my journey time correctly measured from my front door to my House of Commons office door is some two hours, and that is on days when it is not snowing.

I want to make five quick points. First, under section 5 of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, IPSA is under clear statutory consultation obligations. I believe that IPSA was in clear breach of those statutory obligations in respect of MPs like myself whose constituencies were not specifically identified either in the Kelly report or in IPSA’s own consultation document as constituencies where the MPs were likely to be deprived of their London accommodation expenses, virtually without notice. I consider that the treatment by IPSA of this group of MPs, particularly those who have rental contracts, has been wholly unacceptable.

The chronology ran as follows. On 29 March this year, IPSA published its MPs expenses scheme, and the MPs concerned learned, out of the blue, that they would no longer obtain reimbursement for their rental contracts. The expenses scheme was brought into statutory effect on the very same date by Mr Speaker laying the expenses scheme before the House. A few days later, on 12 April, Parliament was dissolved, and the MPs concerned therefore lost any ability to contest or to object to the provisions that had been included in the expenses scheme.

Polling day was a few weeks later on 6 May, and the IPSA expenses scheme came into legal effect on the following day, 7 May. Those MPs with rental contracts found themselves unable to claim reimbursement for their rental payments under those contracts with immediate effect. I believe this was a serious breach of IPSA’s statutory consultation obligations. If any employer, whether in the public or the private sector, had treated their people in the same way, they would face serious liability for damages in front of an employment tribunal.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I hope my right hon. Friend will recognise that we are not employees in any sense. We are self-employed. Had he lost his seat on 6 May, there would have been no question of reimbursement from public funds for his rental contract, however much time remained unfilled.

[Sir John Stanley]

There is an important point on the status of MPs, to which I shall come later. If they were self-employed, they would determine their own expenses scheme. They emphatically are not doing so.

The second point is that in its expenses scheme, IPSA produced a schedule of what it described as “fundamental principles”. An important fundamental principle is fundamental principle 2. It reads:

“Members of Parliament have the right to be reimbursed for unavoidable costs where they are incurred wholly, exclusively, and necessarily in the performance of their parliamentary duties, but not otherwise.”

It is an illustration of the sad and regrettable fact that the IPSA board members have not adequately informed themselves about what is involved in the work of an MP that that principle, which IPSA says is fundamental, has not been complied with in a number of cases. I want to explain one such case.

As all of us know, what are deemed to be outer London Members—which includes a huge swathe representing constituencies in the home counties—regularly make day visits to their constituencies wholly for parliamentary purposes, such as to attend a school or a meeting with their health authority, but none of the travel costs for such trips are reimbursable under the IPSA expenses scheme unless the Member goes to his or her constituency office, which might be wholly irrelevant to the purpose of the journey. That is one illustration of IPSA failing to comply with what it describes as a fundamental principle, and I have no doubt that other Members can think of further situations when they have incurred expenses

“wholly, exclusively, and necessarily in the performance of their parliamentary duties”

that have not been reimbursed.

My third point is about a term with which we are all very familiar: maladministration. In the Westminster Hall debate initiated by the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), countless examples of maladministration by IPSA were given. It is very regrettable that in putting together the legislation that is the basis for IPSA, the previous Government failed to apply to IPSA as a statutory quango the same right of redress as applies in respect of a host of similar bodies—namely, the right for an individual to make a complaint of maladministration, in this case to the parliamentary ombudsman. It is equally regrettable that the current Government have thus far failed to address that.

I submitted a written parliamentary question on that point to the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, which was answered this week:

“The remit of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (the Parliamentary Ombudsman) is updated annually. As part of this exercise, consideration is given to whether bodies established in year should be brought within the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s remit.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 560W.]

The parliamentary ombudsman’s remit is under constant examination, and I believe IPSA should forthwith be brought within its remit so that Members of Parliament—and possibly others, such as Members’ staff—can make a complaint of maladministration against IPSA to the parliamentary ombudsman.

My fourth point is that in any properly functioning democracy it is, of course, essential that Ministers and Members of Parliament are not in any way above the law, but equally in any properly functioning democracy Members of Parliament should have the same rights in law as are available to other individuals who are engaged in their occupational work. Under IPSA, however, Members of Parliament are uniquely disadvantaged in law. IPSA is effectively performing the functions of the employer: in any walk of life it is the employer who determines what expenses can be claimed for, how they should be claimed for and so forth, and those are exactly IPSA’s functions. In any other walk of life, the employee—the person working—would be able to go to an employment tribunal. Members are not self-employed; we have employed status for tax purposes. IPSA is the employer in that it determines the expenses framework, but Members are, I believe, the only occupational group in this country who have employed status but no right of recourse to an employment tribunal. That should change, and we should have the same rights as every other occupation group, solely, I stress, in relation to IPSA and the performance of its expenses function and emphatically not—I repeat, not—in relation to the electorate.

My fifth and final point is about parliamentary privilege. Of the privileges that we have, one of the most important for the benefit of our constituents is the fundamental privilege of freedom from obstruction in the performance of our parliamentary duties. In our debates about IPSA, Member after Member has referred to the way in which they as Members, or their staff assisting them, have been obstructed by IPSA—by its bureaucratic processes, failure to answer the telephone and the 1,001 things to which Members have referred—in terms of the severe loss of time while dealing with the authority and its procedures. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor, in his House magazine article on 8 November, said of IPSA:

“It actively obstructs Members in their efforts to represent the people who elect them,”

and he was absolutely correct.

I am in no doubt that this issue—the relationship between IPSA and parliamentary privilege—should be brought before the Standards and Privileges Committee. As the House knows, under current procedures, which in my view are outdated and urgently need to be reformed, the only way in which an individual Member can put a complaint about a breach of privilege in front of that Committee is by means of making a precedence motion application to Mr Speaker. Most right hon. and hon. Members know that I have made such an application because there is no doubt whatever in my mind that many Members are being materially obstructed in the performance of their parliamentary duties by IPSA, but my application was, sadly, unsuccessful.

I hope that right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House will not be deterred by the fate of my application; I hope that other Members will consider making an application to Mr Speaker; and I very much hope that their persuasions in relation to Mr Speaker on this issue are superior to my own.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In view of the tragic news from Zurich and the sounds of celebration being carried on the chill eastward winds from Russia, has any approach been made to you, Sir, or to your office to disseminate that sad information throughout the Palace?

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

John Stanley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I wish to declare an interest as one of the many Members of Parliament who have been deemed to be a London-area MP with a constituency outside London. I also wish to state that I am among the many MPs of all political parties who were not asked to pay one penny back by Sir Thomas Legg.

I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) on initiating the debate; he has done a great service to parties in all parts of the House. New Members, in particular, might well ask how it is that they arrived in the House on 6 May to find the expenses scheme creating such enormous difficulty for them and, indeed, for returned Members. It is therefore worth stating that that occurred because the final IPSA scheme was published only on 29 March. On the very same day, it was brought into being, when the Speaker laid it before the House without debate, consideration, the opportunity for amendment or a vote. I hasten to say that that comment represents no criticism whatever of the Speaker; that was the procedure laid down by the House in the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009. That is why we are in this situation, debating a scheme that has hitherto been wholly undebated and that is incapable of amendment or vote by Members of the House.

I want to focus on one fundamental issue, which has thus far, I believe, received no consideration inside or outside the House, although I drew it to the attention of IPSA’s chair, Sir Ian Kennedy, in my letter to him of 21 December last year. That issue is the interface between parliamentary privilege and IPSA’s decisions. I should make it absolutely clear that the aspect of parliamentary privilege to which I am referring has nothing whatever to do with the application of the criminal law to MPs’ expenses. I am referring to a quite different aspect of parliamentary privilege—the privilege of freedom from obstruction in the performance of parliamentary duties.

I have taken advice from the Clerk of the House as to the ambit of that privilege. He has drawn my attention to page 75 of “Erskine May”, under the heading “What constitutes privilege”. He has also drawn my attention to page 143, under the heading “Obstructing Members of either House in the discharge of their duty”, the first paragraph of which reads:

“The House will proceed against those who obstruct Members in the discharge of their responsibilities to the House or in their participation in its proceedings.”

He has also drawn my attention to the report of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, at paragraph 264, where, among the contempts of Parliament that are listed, are

“assaulting, threatening, obstructing or intimidating a member or officer of the House in the discharge of the member’s or officer’s duty”.

I do not, of course, suggest that IPSA is in the country of assault, but there are serious issues to be raised about obstruction.

The Clerk of the House has made it clear to me that the privilege of freedom from obstruction applies only to work in connection with parliamentary proceedings. It does not apply to constituency work. However, he has also confirmed to me, in writing, that the protection of MPs from obstruction in connection with parliamentary proceedings applies whether the House is sitting or not. So, just as the IPSA scheme and any obstruction occurring under it applies throughout the year, the protection from obstruction for MPs applies equally throughout the year.

The issue before the House is whether IPSA is obstructing Members of Parliament in the discharge of their parliamentary duties, other than their constituency duties, by, for example, forcing them to spend many hours a week travelling, when they could be working in connection with their parliamentary duties; or whether in countless other ways, as we heard from the hon. Gentleman and in interventions, it is obstructing Members in the efficient and effective discharge of their parliamentary duties.

[Helen Goodman]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a fascinating and pertinent point. Is he aware that some of our colleagues have been told that they cannot recoup the cost of going to conferences on subjects that are of relevance to their work in the House and their constituencies? Is not that precisely the sort of issue that would be covered by the points he has made?

[Sir John Stanley]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that important point.

No one can say with certainty at the moment whether IPSA is violating the privilege of freedom from obstruction; that is a matter for the House of Commons only. Equally, no one can reasonably deny that the issue must be addressed by the House, as early as possible in the life of this Parliament. We are in an unprecedented situation. Never before in the history of Parliament has a statutory body outside Parliament been created with the ability to introduce rules that directly impact on the ability of Members of Parliament to perform their parliamentary duties. It is clear that the boundary between the authority of IPSA and the ambit of the parliamentary privilege of freedom from obstruction needs to be defined. It is at the moment wholly undefined. For that reason, the issue must be placed at an early date before the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges. I intend to achieve that, with, I hope, the support of other Members. I hope the Minister will agree that the issue of the boundary between the authority of IPSA and the privilege of freedom from obstruction needs early consideration by the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I will not take any more interventions. I have only four minutes.

The shadow Secretary of State, who was responsible for taking some of the measures through the House, explained clearly the history behind them, the reason why they were introduced and the consequences of moving to an independent system. He also explained why it was necessary. The details of IPSA’s internal workings are for the chairman of its board and its senior management to explain, not the Government. I will not discuss individual details of how the expenses scheme works.

However, the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has an oversight role. It must agree IPSA’s budget and lay it before the House. Members will be aware that the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, an analogous body, answers both written and oral questions in the House from Members. I understand that at its first meeting on 30 June, the Speaker’s Committee for IPSA will consider whether that is a suitable model for enabling IPSA to answer Members’ questions about its internal workings.

My hon. Friend the hon. Member for South Norfolk, an experienced and well-respected member of the Select Committee on Public Accounts during the last Parliament, made the point that IPSA is subject to audit by the National Audit Office and therefore also by the Public Accounts Committee. I would expect the new Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform to take an interest in the matter as well. Those bodies will deal with the scrutiny oversight arrangements and ensure that IPSA is discharging its duties in a sensible way.

[Sir John Stanley]

Before my hon. Friend sits down, will he answer the fundamental question that I put to him? Does he agree that it is necessary and desirable that the Standards and Privileges Committee should consider the interface and boundary between the authority of IPSA and Members’ parliamentary privilege of freedom from obstruction?

[Mr Harper]

It is not for a member of the Government to tell the Standards and Privileges Committee—when it is set up—what it should consider. The Chairman and members of that Committee are perfectly able to decide that. However, it is worth remembering and reiterating the point made by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) that under the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, IPSA has a statutory duty to ensure that it supports Members in carrying out their parliamentary functions efficiently, cost-effectively and transparently. IPSA is legally obliged when running the scheme to ensure that it is helping us do our jobs as Members of Parliament. That was put into the Act from the beginning.

As I am about to run out of time, I will just make the point that the Government support the independent system of regulating our parliamentary expenses that has been in place since the election. We want to enable IPSA to get on with doing the job it is legally obliged to do in order to help us do our job of serving the public, but we will keep its role and functions under review. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Walsall North for securing this debate. It has been helpful, and I am sure that members of the IPSA board will take note of all the concerns raised. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who was here earlier, has been speaking with IPSA regularly about any concerns raised by Members regarding their ability to do their job, and I know that he will continue to do so.

Afghanistan

John Stanley Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and either I or the Defence Secretary would be happy to meet him and other colleagues. He makes a very good point: because the whole problem of mental health issues has not had enough attention, we are seeing former soldiers fall through the net and, as he says, too often end up either homeless on the streets or, on occasion, in the criminal justice system.

[Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if we are to achieve lasting security success in Afghanistan, it is imperative that we exert the maximum possible pressure on al-Qaeda and the Taliban on both sides of the border? Is it the Government’s policy to continue the programme of bilateral counter-terrorism co-operation between the British Government and the Pakistan Government initiated by the previous Government here?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, it absolutely is our policy to continue that work. The vital role that will be played by Pakistan will encourage it to go on driving al-Qaeda out of the badlands of the tribally administered areas. That is taking place, partly because there is good security and military co-operation, and there is a sense among the Pakistan Government and military that both the British and the Americans are there for a long-term relationship, to help them with this vital work.