Foreign Affairs Committee

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I accept that the balance of Opposition Members will be the same. This is not, for example, about someone having gone from the Government Benches to the Opposition Benches, and then a motion trying to flip back the balance. For me, though, this is about choosing the Opposition Members on a Select Committee. Let us be candid: there will be occasions when the Government might not particularly want certain individuals from the Opposition on a certain Committee. That is where the conflict lies. This is about Government Members —particularly those in the Government—choosing the Opposition Members on a Select Committee.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

This is the first time that I have ever had to disagree with anything my hon. Friend has ever said on the Floor of the House. I still hope that he will think again, listen to the rest of the debate and perhaps be persuaded. I must say that if any move is made to remove the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) from the chairmanship of the Liaison Committee, I shall certainly vote against that. As someone who disagrees with the stance taken on Europe by all the Independent Group Members, which has led them to find themselves cast into the wilderness, I would certainly say to my hon. Friend that it is not about him choosing who should be the Opposition Members to go on a Committee; it is about him deciding whether a witch hunt should allow Opposition Members to be driven off a Committee.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my right hon. Friend, who shows his skills as a parliamentarian in recognising how this place works. It is not about our own views; it is about how we see the process working. Although I hear his strong point, I still have my view, and I will be abstaining—I will not be voting in favour. I would normally say that a nomination by an Opposition party should be respected by Government Members, but this situation is different in that it is not the case that Members are looking to retire from the Committee and that a vacancy therefore exists that needs to be filled. I do question the motivations and timing behind this move, but I do not feel that it is for me to be choosing Opposition Members. I might change that view if we were talking about Government Members, but it is my view that this decision is for the Opposition.

[Dr Lewis]

If my hon. Friend’s objection were well founded, does he not think that our own Whips Office would have issued a three-line Whip and not given us the free choice to vote as we please?

[Kevin Foster]

Actually, I commend the Government Whips Office for giving us a free vote to allow people to make their choice according to their conscience. I will abstain. I am not whipped as a payrolled Member to be in the Aye Lobby or the No Lobby. It is right that all Members of the House should make their own choice today. We all differ, and each choice will be valid. With that, I bring my remarks to a close—[Interruption.] I can hear the disappointment of the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). The reason I will abstain is purely that I do not agree with the principle of key Government Members making a decision about Opposition Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

There have been times today when I thought I was listening to my own obituary, and it has been quite moving to hear some kind things said about me. But it is not about me, and it is not about my good friend the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) either; it is about the way in which this Parliament works.

I have had the privilege and the honour to be a Member of Parliament for 27 years. For the vast majority of that time—19 years—I have been a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I have also served on the Defence Committee, the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy briefly, the Liaison Committee and, for more than 10 years, the Committees on Arms Export Controls, formerly known as the Quad. I know that the only way that this Parliament’s Select Committees work and work effectively is if we produce unanimous reports. We get listened to and noticed only when we work on a cross-party basis and leave our party labels behind us. If we get a 9:2 split in a Committee, it is better that the two are from different parties and that the nine are from different parties, than if it goes the other way. That is how Parliament works, and it works effectively.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Is this not the heart of the matter? Is it not absurd to be talking about changing the balance between Opposition and Government membership on these Committees? These Committees, with very few exceptions, never divide along party lines. When the Defence Committee meets, I never ever have to consider the fact that it might be me—one Conservative—and five Opposition Members who happen to be in that meeting at the time.

I crave your indulgence for a second, Madam Deputy Speaker, to say that I am very sorry I cannot make a full speech in this debate because I was chairing a Defence Committee meeting that overlapped with a large part of it. However, I have known of the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) since the 1970s, when we were both fighting Trotskyists inside the Labour party. In the 1990s, I remember going with Conservative delegations to eastern Europe, only to find that the hon. Gentleman, as international secretary of the Labour party, had got there before us. The idea that the hon. Gentleman has had to leave the Labour party, when every drop of his blood is infused with the ethos of the Labour party, is absolutely tragic—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.