Debate on the Address

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The answer is yes, but I have been waiting for this question. For five years, I sat listening to all the right hon. Gentleman’s questions to the former Labour Prime Ministers on this issue, and never once was I able to remind him of some of the people his party sits with in the European Parliament, so I hope the House will indulge me. Labour is allied to the Lithuanian Social Democratic party, one of whose MPs said:

“As a doctor, I think that”

homosexuality “is a disease”.

I think that is a disgusting point of view. And that is who you sit with; that is who the right hon. Gentleman sits with.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it in order for the Prime Minister to continue his practice in opposition of using the word “you” to describe Members on the opposite side of the House?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman is that it is not in order, but I know that the Prime Minister is not going to do it again anyway.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I am not quite sure where to start, Mr. Speaker. As for appointing peers, let me remind the hon. Lady that previous Governments, particularly that of Tony Blair, appointed more peers than any Prime Minister in British history. What is more, the Labour party had 13 years to reform the House of Lords and completely failed in something this Government are going to achieve. Let me explain that we are not taking away Parliament’s right to throw out the Government; we are taking away the Government’s right to throw out the Parliament. That is why it is about giving power from the Prime Minister to the legislature. If it is such a bad idea, why did every Labour Member put it in their manifesto and stand for it at the last election?

[Kevin Brennan]

rose—

[The Prime Minister]

No, I have given way enough.

As this Government start the job of building our country’s future, the Labour party is clearly thinking about its own future. As experts in leadership elections, we shall be watching with interest. I have to say, however, that if Labour thinks that having a leadership election is the answer to its problems, it is wrong. The truth is that it is not the leader that is the problem; it is Labour. The whole approach has been wrong—the idea that for every problem there is a bottomless pit of public money, that for every situation there is a Government solution and for every issue there is a Whitehall initiative. It ended up giving us an economy that is nearly bankrupt, a society that is broken and a political system that is bust. That is why this coalition has come together—because this country needs strong, stable government to sort out the mess that the Labour Government made. They gave us big spending; we will bring good housekeeping. They trusted in bureaucracy, we will trust in community. They governed in the party interest; we will govern in the national interest.

This Queen’s Speech marks an end to the years of recklessness and big government and the beginning of the years of responsibility and good government. It takes the deficit head-on; it shows the world that Britain is reopening for business; it tackles the causes of our social problems; it means better schools for our children, real hope for those out of work and a stronger NHS for everyone; and its means having a Parliament that belongs to the people, not the politicians. It means a new start for Britain, and I commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

I usually enjoy and can be quite entertained by the speeches of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), who can be very humorous, but today he chose to make a series of very serious allegations, which he has the opportunity to make outside the House where there are proper procedures that can be followed to test them, and I would expect him to do that.

I usually also expect the right hon. Gentleman to have some wider grasp of the context of his comments, but I found no evidence in his speech that he realised that, actually, we are all minorities. No party won a majority at this election, and therefore some combination of parties had to find a way of ensuring that this country had stable government.

The right hon. Gentleman also seems to be unaware of the fact that his party’s Chief Secretary left a note saying that there is no money left, and the scale of the debt seemed to pass him by, too. I was disappointed that on this occasion I did not enjoy one of his speeches as much as I sometimes do, especially as I regard his great seniority—he is one of the four or five MPs who has been here longer than me—as rather reassuring.

I wish to extend my congratulations to the Members who spoke earlier: the two opening speakers and, indeed, the acting Leader of the Opposition, who I thought spoke with some force, and quite a lot of the time with some dignity as well. I, too, am puzzled as to why she is not entering her party’s leadership contest, but I shall come back shortly to the interesting subject of the future of the Labour party.

First, I want to remind the House that we are all minorities now, and that that left my party with a choice. We could enable a Conservative minority Government to take office, which would not have been a stable Government, would not have had broad support and would not have carried out Liberal Democrat policies, or we could reach an agreement to work together to create a stable Government drawing on the ideas and policies of both our parties. We explored whether a coalition with Labour and others was feasible, but there was no sign of movement from Labour on the civil liberties issues, such as identity cards, or on our tax proposals for people on low and middle incomes. There was also no majority for such a coalition and, perhaps most telling of all, there was no real will within the Labour party to take it on. Moreover, I think that some on the Labour Front Bench saw honourable defeat and moving aside to resolve their own leadership questions as a better course—and the more cynical would say some of them thought, “There are too many difficult decisions to be taken; let’s get out of the way and leave it to somebody else to take them.”

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Alan Beith]

No, I want to make a little progress, but I shall give way later.

Labour Members have now entered a leadership election which I am sure we will all find diverting and entertaining. As the Prime Minister pointed out, two brothers are taking part. Why is that principle not extended further? I wanted the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) to stand in contest against her husband; that would have been good. There might also be the question of the husband of the acting leader of the Labour party taking part, along with her; that would be fascinating. And why should the hon. Members for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) and for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) not also stand, so that we have two sisters in the race? A pack of “Happy Families” cards could be kept handy in case there is a tie at the end of the contest.

Let me make a serious point about Labour’s leadership election, however. I think Labour and its new leader will have to think through the consequences of the massive debt crisis they have left behind. If they are serious, they cannot simply enjoy the luxury of attacking every cut as if no action needs to be taken and nothing needs to be done. Frankly, if there had been no election and they had stayed in office, they would have been confronted with the same difficult decisions that confront this coalition Government now. We cannot tackle this crisis on the basis that something will turn up.

[Kevin Brennan]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has taken as his theme that we are all minorities; does he believe that 54 per cent. of this House constitutes a minority?

[Sir Alan Beith]

I was going to come to that point later, but I shall deal with it now. The hon. Gentleman seems to confuse two things. A vote of confidence—a decision to throw out a Government—is at present and in the future a matter for a bare majority of those voting in this House. That is perfectly straightforward: a majority in this House can get rid of a Government in whom it does not have confidence. That is not the same question as whether a general election should immediately take place. If we make it the same question, consequences follow. One is that it influences the potential outcome of a vote on removing a Government and may make some people more unwilling to remove a Government. In addition, we then present the sovereign with a potentially politically controversial choice about whether to grant a Dissolution, as most precedents require, in circumstances in which there is or may be an alternative Government.

That is why the Labour Government legislated in the Scottish Parliament that there should be a distinct procedure. It is why the German Parliament, which we helped to set up after the war, has a distinct procedure for a constructive vote of confidence. It is a well established practice in many countries, but we should be clear—

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Alan Beith]

No, I have dealt with the point. We should be clear that there is a difference between the vote to get rid of a Government and in effect placing in the hands of the Prime Minister the power to call a general election whenever he feels like doing so and whenever it is in his political interests to do so.