Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House

Lady Hermon Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The right hon. Gentleman says it was about his right Friend’s question. It was a question, but the point is it was about a tweet. Hon. Members would not expect my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to comment on every single press comment about the House and dignify them all with a response. To come back to the point I was making when I took the intervention, the Government cannot be expected to have a blanket policy for what they do about Opposition days. We look at the motion on the Order Paper.

I have got into trouble in the past. When I responded at the Dispatch Box to Opposition day debates, I was often criticised because I used to do that dreadful thing of actually looking at the words on the Order Paper that the House was being asked to agree or not. I would be told that they did not really matter—what mattered was the debate we were having, and the general principle, and that we did not worry about the words. Well actually, the words are important and the right stance for the Government, each time there is an Opposition day motion —indeed any motion—before the House is to look at the words on the Order Paper and then make a judgment about whether they wish to support or oppose them. I will come to the specific motions that were being considered in a moment.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

May I take it from what the right hon. Gentleman has said that from now on, when a DUP Member makes a comment in an Opposition day debate—as they did in our first Opposition day debate in this Parliament—that they are not minded to support the Government at the end of the day in a vote, the Government will not be persuaded by the DUP, will not be dictated to by the DUP, but will actually call a vote? Is that what the right hon. Gentleman is saying?

[Mr Harper]

No, it is not what I am saying. I am saying what I said in my own words. Let me go to the decision that I think the Government took on the motions; then the Leader of the House may comment in due course.

What the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said, in his pitch to Mr Speaker yesterday and in his debate today, was that in both debates the Government argued against the motions that were on the Order Paper. Before today’s debate I carefully read the debates to see whether that was right: I do not think it was. In the NHS debate, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health did not argue against the motion on the Order Paper. What he actually said was that it was bogus, because it did not address some of the fundamental issues. [Interruption.] This is exactly as I said, Mr Speaker. As soon as attention is drawn to the motions on the Order Paper, which the House was being asked to agree, people do not like it. That is the fundamental point here, and one I am sure my right hon. Friend considered before he made a decision about the way that Government Members should vote.

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[Mr Harper]

Yes I do. I read the motion very carefully. It said that the Government should abandon the 1% pay cap; and my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in her response to the debate, made it clear that the pay review bodies for the next financial year would have more flexibility—so, in effect, she confirmed that part of it.

The second part of the motion referred to NHS staff getting a fair pay rise. We all agree that NHS workers—indeed, public sector workers generally—should get a fair pay rise. The point of political debate is to ask what “fair” means. We have to balance affordability for the economy, what public sector workers need to get paid for recruitment, retention and morale purposes, and what those in the private sector, who pay taxes to pay for our public services, are being paid. If we read the motion, I think we find it was completely consistent with the Government’s policy, which I suspect is exactly why the Secretary of State for Health did not feel it was sensible to urge Conservative colleagues to vote against it.

[Lady Hermon]

I am very grateful indeed to the right hon. Gentleman for taking a second intervention. He obviously was unable to hear my first intervention, so may I just repeat my question? If the 10 DUP MPs indicate during an Opposition day debate that they are not going to support the Government, will the Government vote on the motion?

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[Andrea Leadsom]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Parliamentary procedure is of vital importance to our democracy, and it is taken very seriously on both sides of the House, so I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate, which is of course the 14th hour we have spent debating parliamentary procedure in the 26 sitting days since the general election, and apparently all because of a tweet. Well, I am sure that the nation is glued to the Parliament channel.

In response to the right hon. Gentlemen’s accusation that the Government are not listening, I want to set out some steps that we have recently taken to speed up scrutiny and to respond to requests from Members on both sides of the House. First, the Select Committees were established early—quicker than in both 2010 and 2015—and all parties worked quickly to hold elections so that Committees could begin their important work in the September sitting. I was also delighted to ensure that the Backbench Business Committee was established at the same time so that Members would have another channel for scrutiny, and I am pleased to announce that the first Back-Bench debates will be held next week.

Secondly, a sitting of the House was extended for the Second Reading of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill to allow many Members to speak about that important legislation. Thirdly, we have allocated eight full days in the Chamber, each with eight protected hours of debate, for that Bill. Those 64 hours are in contrast to the rather more miserable 39 hours and 17 minutes that were spent ratifying the Lisbon treaty.

Fourthly, we have provided Government time for specific debates following requests from Members. The issue of illegal Traveller encampments has been raised by Members on both sides of the House at every business questions since I became Leader of the House, and this week is Baby Loss Awareness Week—a truly tragic issue that affects many people across the UK—so it is right that we have found time to debate both important subjects. I have extended today’s sitting because it would be a great shame if Members were unable to take part in the baby loss debate. Let me also remind the House that the Conservative party set up the Backbench Business Committee, restoring a better balance between Government and Parliament.

[Lady Hermon]

I listened intently to what the right hon. Lady said about the importance of procedure in this House, so how does she feel about the complete absence of DUP Members from the Chamber? Will she also address another key issue? If any of the 10 DUP MPs indicate that they will vote against a motion on an Opposition day, will the Government give an assurance that they will still decide for themselves whether to press for a vote?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I want to make it clear to all Members that the House expressed an opinion when it agreed to the relevant Opposition day motions. It does the same when a Back-Bench motion is passed. I think what the hon. Lady, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and the shadow Leader of the House are trying to argue is that we should be voting against motions. Let me again be clear that the House expressed an opinion in those Opposition day debates. If Members chose not to vote against those motions, it does not mean that the House did not express an opinion.

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[Andrea Leadsom]

Of course my hon. Friend is exactly right. Opposition Members wanted us to oppose, not support, which was what happened on the day.

[Lady Hermon]

rose—

[Andrea Leadsom]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady again.

In addition to the Opposition day debates, there has already been an emergency debate on tuition fees, as well as Government statements, urgent questions from the Opposition and Westminster Hall debates on those subjects.

The Government take their duties in this House very seriously, but I am afraid that those Opposition day motions were meant for party political point scoring. Labour has form in promising everything but not delivering. The party misled students before the general election when the Leader of the Opposition said he would deal with student debt—a £100 billion commitment—only for his shadow Education Secretary to have to admit following the election that that was just an aspiration. Aspirations are not good enough; it is deeds that matter. It is only this Government—a Conservative Government—who can be trusted to deliver strong public services while sorting out the disastrous public finances left to us by Labour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to make a short contribution to this debate. Like perhaps a number of Members, I was somewhat surprised to find us debating this issue today, when there are so many other things we should be debating, but you are absolutely right, Sir. As the shadow Leader of the House said, you are entrusted with grave responsibilities, and it is only right, when a Member of this House makes what is effectively a substantive complaint against the Government—essentially, that they disrespect this House—that you should call them to this House. I am grateful for that, because it allows those of us on the Government Benches to set out arguments that, as you will see, more or less demolish the proposition that has been put.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) quite rightly said that we need to look at the words of the motion, which says:

“That this House has considered the Government’s policy in relation to the proceedings of this House.”

There seem to me to be two ways one can tackle the motion. The first is to look, as he did, forensically at the debates in question, which the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) referred to yesterday. Anyone listening to my right hon. Friend’s speech would conclude that the Government clearly did not disrespect this House in any way.

There is another way of looking at this, which is to say, “What would be the basis for the charge?” There seem to me to be four things that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland could complain about. The first is, “Are the Government allocating enough days to Opposition debates?” Is he saying that the Government are not taking part? Is his charge that failure to vote is in some way a slight or a breach of convention? Or is he just saying that the Government are ignoring the Opposition motions?

The shadow Leader of the House complained in her speech about the number of times she has to ask for days. The reality is that the number of days allocated to Opposition day debates has not changed since their introduction in 1998. Governments of all hues— Labour, coalition and Conservative—have observed the number of allocated days. Indeed, in the period 2010 to 2017, when the Opposition were entitled to 140 days, they were actually given 141 days. They were also given 24 more days in unallocated business that there was space for, so they cannot really claim that Opposition business is not being allocated the right number of days.

If the charge is about participation, then a number of colleagues from across the House have pointed out that they are participating, particularly on this side of the House. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, on the day in question the Government fielded some of their most senior members. There were 11 speeches from the Opposition Benches and 10 from the Government’s, and in the second debate I think the figures were eight and 17. In both cases we had almost exactly the same number of speeches, so the charge of non-participation, which seems to be the thrust behind some of the contributions today, does not stack up. If this was the only time made available to debate such matters, that would be serious. It is not, of course. Tuition fees have been debated during ministerial statements and urgent questions, and in Westminster Hall. The subjects have been thoroughly debated by this House, and the charge of non-participation seems to me to be very difficult to prove.

The Government, as the Leader of the House said, take their responsibilities very seriously. If the Opposition really believe there is a need for more scrutiny, there is a way to secure more scrutiny and force the Government to defend their case, and that is by debating and voting on programme motions. The Opposition have chosen to debate only 15% of programme motions in the last seven years. If they really want more time, the Opposition could force the Government to come through the Lobby more often on programme motions, but they have chosen not to do so.

The third charge is that, somehow, by not voting the Government snubbed the House. On the two days that we are talking about, my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean and others have made the point that snubbing the Opposition was certainly not the reason for the Government’s not voting. It is absolutely true that no Government have ever been bound by convention or the rules of the House to vote on any motion, especially Opposition motions. As my right hon. Friend has said, it is clear that Government—the Leader of the House is, I believe, following this tradition—should consider each motion and debate as it comes. There is no reason why the Government should be committed to voting on any motion, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House was right to resist the temptations offered by the Scottish National party to commit herself to that.

[Lady Hermon]

I am not suggesting that the Government snubbed this House, but the fact that they did not vote on lifting the pay cap left uncertainty for thousands and thousands of nurses and doctors throughout the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] If I may, I will continue. At the end of that debate when the Government did not vote, after the DUP had indicated that it would not be supporting them, there was no point of order to clarify the situation. I have scores of constituents in Northern Ireland, where we have no devolved Assembly. We need a lead from this House, and we did not get one. The problem is not the snub but the ambiguity, because this is not an academic point of argument; it affects people’s lives.

[Stephen Hammond]

The charge of ambiguity is a serious one, but it does not hold up. The Government Front-Bench team answered that question when they responded to the motion, so I do not think that that charge can really be levelled against the Government.

In the short time that I have left, let me make the point that as a Government Back Bencher, I have experienced the frustration of sitting here with my colleagues until all hours of the night, only to find that no vote takes place. On the question of votes, it is for individual Members to make their minds up, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) said. We are elected here as individuals, and we can follow our wits, if we choose to do so. We are often urged to do so, and many people choose to do so, but it is for us to make that decision. Equally, it is for the Government to choose, motion by motion, when they should vote.

Finally, Opposition days can be used to raise matters of national importance, but all too often—not necessarily in this case—they are used for narrow party political posturing rather than a discussion of real quality. If a motion is about a matter of national importance, it is often phrased in a way that the Government find provocative or difficult to support. Many Governments have taken the view that they need to note what an Opposition day motion says, but ever since 1978, when the Conservative Opposition twice defeated the then Labour Government, it has become an established custom of this House that Opposition days are nothing more than advisory, and that they are not actionable. Although the Government should take note of the motions and continue to debate the issues raised in them—I have no doubt that that will happen under my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House—they are advisory and the Government are not bound by them in any way.

This has been an interesting debate, but what today has shown—my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean pointed this out—is that, in the case of the two debates mentioned by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, the charge does not stand. If we look behind the four possible arguments for saying that the Government are not listening on Opposition days, it is very difficult to contend that his proposition stands, so I hope Members will vote to defeat it this evening.