Summer Adjournment

Debate between John Stanley and Helen Goodman

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

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

My constituent, Mrs Rene Chung, is not an illegal immigrant, although that is how she has been treated, in part, by the Home Office and the UK Border Agency—I am glad to see that the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), is in his place.

Mrs Rene Chung is a Canadian citizen and she has been living in the UK, perfectly legally, since 2008. She is married to a British citizen and she is a top-flight business woman. She contributes to Britain’s economic performance, and no doubt to the revenues going into the Exchequer through the tax system. For her job it is essential that she travels. The chief executive of the company for which she works—an international, executive search and selection company—recently wrote to the Home Secretary as follows:

“Ms Chung works as a Senior Consultant for me, and as a valued member of my company, she holds expert knowledge about our clients and their businesses, and she also has valuable experience of interviewing and assessing the suitability of candidates for our clients. Ms Chung is also responsible for business development and she is required to support me in “pitch” meetings which involves visiting clients’ offices all over Europe. Our business travel occurs about two times a month, and is usually planned at very short notice i.e. one week notice or less. It is important for me to stress that Ms Chung’s ability to carry out her basic job responsibilities is directly linked to her ability to travel. Ms Chung has performed extremely well in my company for the past four years, and she has proven to be an asset to the company. It is therefore important for me to request that Ms Chung is allowed to continue travelling regularly for business.”

I will not detain the House with the details of Rene Chung’s case, but I want to highlight three points. First, Mrs Chung has been waiting for more than a year for the renewal of her spouse visa application—in my view, an unacceptable length of time. Secondly, the Home Office has already made a disastrous error in handling her case by incorrectly deeming Mrs Chung’s application to have been withdrawn—the Immigration Minister has apologised for that in his latest letter to me. Thirdly, and most disgracefully of all, when Mrs Chung recently returned to Gatwick, following a business visit to Europe, she was locked up for six hours and released only after her passport had been confiscated. Such conduct is more redolent of an authoritarian police state than what we expect in a democratic Britain that pays proper regard to basic human rights.

When it comes to supporting economic growth in the business community, the Home Office is wholly apart from the rest of the Government, who are doing all they can to support economic growth in the business community—some signs of success are, I hope, beginning to show through. On the other hand, as far as I can see, the Home Office takes absolutely no account of the need to support the business community, including individual business men and women trying to contribute to our economic growth. It is blindingly obvious that it should introduce a fast-track procedure for processing applications for visa renewals of people with a clear legal right to be in this country and for whom travel is essential to their work. I put it to the Home Secretary that fast-track processing should be put in place forthwith. In cases such as Mrs Chung’s, I see no reason why visa renewal applications should not be processed within a maximum of four weeks.

Finally, I want to make a complaint to the Immigration Minister about a recent answer he has given to me. I appreciate that he has probably got the worst job in the Government and is probably grossly overburdened, but on 11 July he gave me a seriously misleading answer. I tabled a question to the Home Secretary asking when I would receive a reply to a total of four letters I had sent to her about Mrs Rene Chung’s case. The Minister replied:

“I wrote to my right hon. Friend on 3 July 2013.”—[Official Report, 11 July 2013; Vol. 566, c. 367W.]

The answer was misleading, because it related only to the first letter I wrote to the Home Secretary. I have received no reply to the remaining three letters. I ask my hon. Friend the Immigration Minister to make the appropriate correction in Hansard and, most particularly, to reply forthwith to the three outstanding letters I have sent to the Home Secretary about Mrs Rene Chung’s case, to return her passport to her forthwith and to renew her spouse visa application forthwith.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have just learned that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has laid an order under the Communications Act 2003 to reduce the number of public service broadcasting reviews from a regular review every five years to perhaps only one a decade. The order is not available in the Vote Office and cannot be read on the parliamentary website. It is less than an hour before the House rises for the last time for several weeks. Can you give me any guidance or advice, Mr Deputy Speaker, on what to do?

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Debate between John Stanley and Helen Goodman

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.