Sittings in Westminster Hall (Suspension) (No. 2)

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before I call the Minister, I inform the House that I have selected amendment (a) to motion 4 in the name of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) and others, and amendment (a) to motion 5 in the name of the same hon. Members. The amendments will be debated together with the main motions, and the Questions necessary to dispose of the motions will be put at the end of the debate. Just before I call the Minister to move the motion, I must point out to everyone that there are a number of speakers, so please do not hog the time. I am not going to put a time limit on, but let us see if we can help each other.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

I beg to move motion 4,

That, notwithstanding Standing Order No. 10 (Sittings in Westminster Hall) and the order of this House on 23 September 2020, there shall be no sittings in Westminster Hall with effect from Thursday 14 January until the House otherwise orders.

[Mr Speaker]

With this we will consider the following:

Amendment (a) to motion 4, to leave out from “until” to end and insert “Monday 22 February”.

Motion 5—Business of the House (Private Members’ Bills) (No. 9)—

That the Order of the House of 16 January 2020 (Business of the House (Private Members’ Bills)), as amended by the Orders of the House of 25 March, 22 April, 12 May, 10 June, 1 July, 3 November and 30 December 2020, is further amended as follows: leave out “15 January 2021, 22 January 2021, 29 January 2021, 5 February 2021, 26 February 2021, 5 March 2021, 12 March 2021 and 26 March 2021”.

Amendment (a) to motion 5, to leave out from “leave out ‘15 January 2021” to end and insert:

“( ) The Orders for Second Reading of Bills and for subsequent stages having precedence in accordance with Standing Order No. 14(9) on each of the days listed under Day 1 in the table below are read and discharged.

( ) Each such Bill is ordered to be read a second time or to be set down for the relevant stage on the corresponding day listed under Day 2 in the table; and

( ) Those Bills are so set down on the appropriate Day 2 in the order in which they were so set down on the corresponding Day 1.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There are a number of Members on the call list, and it is important that we were able to hear from them. I therefore intend, perhaps uncharacteristically, to keep my opening remarks succinct. I have brought forward these motions reluctantly, following representations made to me from across the House. I want to be clear to hon. and right hon. Members that I do not believe it would be right for me to bring forward unilaterally these sorts of restrictions to our business without there being requests to do so. The matter was discussed at length by the House of Commons Commission on Monday, and I do not think there can be any misunderstanding of the views of members of the Commission, including those from Opposition parties, that these motions should be brought to the House, although this is a matter for the House and not for the Commission. I understand that there will be some disappointment about the effect of these motions, but I hope that all sides can support them today, in view of the current circumstances.

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have to remember that there are people on the speaking list. If we are going to have interventions, they have to be short, and they have to be relevant to what we are discussing.

To help the Leader of the House, I would say that there are proposals to look at other rooms, but it will take three to four weeks to get that ready. That is now consistently being looked at—especially if the order goes through tonight—in order to make that happen and to try to ensure that we have a real proposal to go forward.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his intervention. I made it clear in my opening remarks that I am very reluctant to remove this scrutiny. Scrutiny is important not just because it is the right of Members to hold the Government to account, but because it leads to better government. Scrutiny of the Government’s ideas and processes, and seeking redress of grievance, helps our constituents, so I would not have brought forward these motions had there not been a widespread appeal for them.

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[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment (a), in line 3, leave out from “until” to end and insert “Monday 22 February”.

May I first thank you, Mr Speaker, for selecting the two amendments in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends, and for facilitating this debate? It is a pity, in my view, that this debate was not volunteered by the Government and that it had to be forced on them by us objecting to the motions that were put down on the Order Paper for yesterday. One consequence of that is that at least we were able to have debates in Westminster Hall today, which otherwise would have been curtailed by the Government.

This is an important issue because we are talking principally about Back-Bench scrutiny. The Leader of the House, in his opening remarks, which I thought were very reasonable, said that he recognises the importance of Back-Bench scrutiny. What we have on the Order Paper at the moment is a proposal that will remove 21 hours a week of scrutiny of the Government—16 hours in Westminster Hall and five hours in private Members’ Bills each week. My right hon. Friend is reluctant to do that and he has said that he will come back to the House as soon as he can to bring forward alternative proposals. What I would like him to do tonight is to guarantee that the Standing Order that requires that there should be 13 sitting Fridays where private Members’ business takes precedence will be complied with in any event in this Session, and that if it cannot be complied with in this Session, the Government will honour the spirit of the Standing Order and allow for the carry-over of those Bills that are set down for days that are not able to be used.

If my right hon. Friend gives me that guarantee, in a sense, it will negate the need for amendment (a) to the second motion, because that amendment is designed to ensure that we can carry on with private Members’ Bills between the period after half-term and the end of April, and it is modelled on the previous motions brought forward by him, most recently on 30 December, when he arranged for the Friday sitting scheduled for 8 January to be moved to 15 January. That system was working perfectly all right and my question is, why, in one week, has it not been possible to replicate the same motions that were put forward previously?

The Prime Minister said today that he will be reviewing, for example, what happens in our schools after half-term. Surely it is appropriate that we should, in any event, have a guarantee that these issues will be revisited by the Leader of the House after half-term. We are talking about no fewer than 151 private Members’ Bills. I have received stick from the Government and colleagues in the past for having insisted that individual private Members’ Bills are debated, but never did I think I would be in the Chamber when the Government put down on the Order Paper a proposal that has the effect for the time being —unless it is ever amended—of depriving 151 private Members’ Bills of any opportunity to be heard and discussed in this Chamber.

I wait to hear from my right hon. Friend—I am happy for him to intervene to give me this guarantee, because I am concerned that we will get to the end of this debate and there will not be an opportunity for him to respond, and this question will go unanswered. I hope that it will not.

[Mr Speaker]

I might be able to help to reassure the hon. Gentleman on that, because I will be bringing the Leader of the House in at 7.50 pm, so whoever may be speaking I would expect to sit down. Let us go to the Chair of the Petitions Committee, Catherine McKinnell.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab) [V]]

The public health situation in the capital and across the country is extremely worrying, and it is vital that the House ensures that Members and staff are working in the safest possible conditions. However, this eventuality should have been planned for before now, because the Government’s plan to close Westminster Hall without an alternative is not just taking away our ability to hold debates, but reducing the opportunities for members of the public—our constituents—to engage with Parliament.

Already in this Parliament, around 11 million people have signed a parliamentary petition, but the public are once again seeing the space for their debates being shut down. On Monday I led a debate on support for the hospitality industry, following a petition that got more than 200,000 signatures, and I heard from many hon. Members that they cared deeply about the subject and knew their constituents did, but felt they could not travel down from their constituency to Westminster to take part. Last week my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House asked—this was mentioned earlier—about hybrid proceedings in Westminster Hall, and the Leader of the House said that the potential £100,000 cost was too high for the Government to consider. Perhaps we now have an answer to the question, “What price democracy?”

But where there is a will there is a way; and when Westminster Hall closed in March, the Petitions Committee innovated. We held one-off sessions and inquiries. We undertook a huge range of online public engagement. We held our own hybrid e-petition sessions, allowing Members to contribute in lieu of the debates we would have liked to have. For some shielding Members, it was actually the first time that they were able to contribute substantively to a Backbench Business debate since the first lockdown began.

Those innovations, however, cannot be a substitute for the proper parliamentary debates that I know we want to see. Hybrid debates may not be perfect, but surely the Leader of the House, who I know considers himself a champion of Parliament, would accept that some form of debate taking place safely, either in hybrid form or entirely virtually, is better than no debates at all. So, since Westminster Hall reopened in October, the Petitions Committee has held 22 debates, covering 37 petitions, signed by over 7 million people. Thirty-three petitions are waiting for debate and the number is growing every week; they share more than 6 million signatures. Petitions debates since March have been viewed more than a million times and are some of the most-read debates in Hansard, and the Backbench Business Committee also currently has at least 12 debates that it wants to schedule. The closure of Westminster Hall without an alternative prevents both our Committees from scheduling any of our debates, and so for petitioners, for Back Benchers and for the good of debate, which is vital to our democracy and the good functioning of government, I urge the Leader of the House to urgently bring forward a motion to ensure a hybrid Westminster Hall, whether that is in the existing hall or in a new location, so that that can come into effect as soon as possible.

[Mr Speaker]

I just want to say that the decision on spending the money is for the House Service; it is not a Government decision.

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[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD) [V]]

This debate has clearly demonstrated the value of Westminster Hall debates and private Members’ Bills for very many Members on both sides of the House, and, most importantly, for the constituents we represent. They allow Back-Bench Members to make their own contributions and advocate for specific topics on behalf of those constituents, as well as helping to shine a light on issues that the Government would not usually be held to account on.

Like other speakers in this debate, I would like to see Westminster Hall become fully virtual, allowing all Members to take part. I understand the broadcast capability constraints that have been reported previously, but I wonder whether an option might be to facilitate virtual participation in Westminster Hall and to record those sessions for later uploading and access by members of the public on the parliamentlive.tv site rather than via live broadcast.

During the autumn, before the Westminster Hall debates were back up and running, the Petitions Committee ran a series of Westminster Hall-style virtual debates that were accessible to those who had not been able to attend the House in person. They were invaluable to many of those hon. Members. I wonder what conversations the Leader of the House has had with either the Commission or the Petitions Committee and its Chairperson about to what extent it is possible to get those up and running again in the short term, or to adapt them to cover a broader range of debates while we look at how we bring Westminster Hall back in a virtual form.

Now that Westminster Hall debates and private Members’ Bills are to cease for the next few weeks, it is true that the avenues by which Members of Parliament can scrutinise the Government will be reduced. It is therefore vital that the Government ensure that those means that are available are working as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Regarding the Chamber, I agree with those hon. Members who have said that the Backbench Business Committee should be allocated a generous amount of time on the Floor of the House to enable it to address the long-standing backlog, which clearly the closure of Westminster Hall does not help. That is one of the few remaining mechanisms by which Back-Bench MPs can get an issue debated in this House, so I ask the Leader of the House to consider allocating further time to the Committee on that basis.

Beyond events in the Chamber, there are questions that we table and letters that we write to Ministers, and there are still real delays in answering parliamentary questions, even when they are named day questions. When they are answered, too often the answers we currently get give insufficient detail or are out of date.

I have concerns about the responses to those letters, and I highlight the Treasury in particular as a Department where we are still receiving stock replies. That is very frustrating for my constituents, who are often seeking a specific response to their query—that is why they have contacted my office in the first place—and I would be grateful if the Leader of the House could speak to the Chancellor about why that delay in particular is ongoing still within the Treasury, more than nine months on from the initial outbreak of coronavirus.

Finally, I pay tribute to the essential members of staff who are present in person on the parliamentary estate, who are allowing proceedings to continue in their current form. I ask the Leader of the House to set out whether any decision has been made in relation to testing for those that are on the estate, an issue I have raised before, to ensure that any outbreak, when it does happen, is caught before it spreads further.

[Mr Speaker]

As I said, we have got to bring the Leader of the House on at 7.50 pm, so please try to share out the time. There are five people to come.

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One hour having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings on the Business of the House (Today) motion, the Speaker put the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Order, this day).

[Mr Speaker]

I call Sir Christopher Chope to move his amendment (a) to motion 4.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

In the light of this debate, I am going to put my trust in the Leader of the House; if that trust is not well founded, I will behave like the late Sir Alan Herbert. Having said that, I will not move my amendment.

[Mr Speaker]

I think we will leave it that the amendment will not be moved.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That, notwithstanding Standing Order No. 10 (Sittings in Westminster Hall) and the order of this House on 23 September 2020, there shall be no sittings in Westminster Hall with effect from Thursday 14 January until the House otherwise orders.

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to motion 5. Sir Christopher, I take it that you will not move your amendment (a), so I will put the Question, with your agreement.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

indicated assent.

Business of the House (Private Members’ Bills) (No. 9)

Ordered,

That the Order of the House of 16 January 2020 (Business of the House (Private Members’ Bills)), as amended by the Orders of the House of 25 March, 22 April, 12 May, 10 June, 1 July, 3 November and 30 December 2020, is further amended as follows:

leave out “15 January 2021, 22 January 2021, 29 January 2021, 5 February 2021, 26 February 2021, 5 March 2021, 12 March 2021 and 26 March 2021”.—(Mr Rees-Mogg.)

[Mr Speaker]

Can I just say to everyone that the Commission of this House takes seriously its role as an employer and its duty of care to all who work here? At its most recent meeting, as has been the case many times before, we have been guided by Public Health England’s advice. We want to do everything in our power to make our workplace as safe as possible for both Members and staff alike, even if at times that means we have to put some limits on our activities, which goes against all our instincts as parliamentarians.

I am thinking of the tragic loss of one of those people who serve this House, so at this time my thoughts are with their family and their colleagues. All I can say is that it is not a great time for this country—it is a sad time—and as soon as we can, I want this House back to normal. That is an assurance from myself, as well as from the Leader of the House.