Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 3, page 1, line 2, leave out ‘publishing draft’ and insert ‘presenting’.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 6, page 1, leave out lines 7 to 10 and insert

‘“legislation” means primary legislation, secondary legislation or amendments to primary legislation’.

Amendment 8, page 1, line 16, leave out ‘draft’.

Amendment 14, title, line 1, leave out

‘preparing draft legislation for publication’

and insert ‘presenting legislation’.

[Helen Goodman]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this Bill and to the amendments standing in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty). The long list of amendments that we have tabled demonstrates that this is an extremely badly drafted piece of legislation. As I am sure Government Members know, Her Majesty’s Opposition oppose the Bill. It is ill-conceived, badly drafted and full of technical problems, and we do not accept its underlying principles. For a start, it does not make sense to look at draft legislation only. Most Bills do not appear in draft at all, so this would catch only a tiny number of the Bills that the House considers.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The hon. Lady and her hon. Friend tabled 14 amendments and one new clause, only four of which have been selected for debate. Does that not suggest that her amendments and new clause were badly drafted as well?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has been here long enough to know that we do not discuss the selection of amendments.

[Helen Goodman]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I would like to point out some of the problems with what has been suggested by the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), whose Bill this is. Every piece of legislation has a territorial extent clause at its end. Let us consider the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which is currently in Committee. The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) has been chairing some of its sittings, so he knows what I am talking about. Clause 117 states that the Bill, as a whole, applies to England and Wales, and then explains which clauses apply more widely. There is no lack of clarity about the legal status of Bills before the House.

Clearly, the hon. Lady’s underlying concern is that people are taking views on legislation that affects parts of the United Kingdom beyond those in which their constituencies are located. If that is her concern, she should have presented a Bill making that case. However, she has presented a different and flawed Bill.

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[Helen Goodman]

As the hon. Gentleman says, arrangements are in place for legislation that takes effect predominantly in Scotland. However, the Government seem to be rushing legislation through so fast that it is quite possible that the Speaker and his offices might not have time to take all these complex matters into account. That is a problem with the way this Government are ramming through legislation on the NHS and, if I might say so, this Legal Aid—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We are meant to be discussing the amendments, but we are getting drawn elsewhere by certain Members. I am sure that, with the hon. Lady’s experience, we can stick to the amendments.

[Helen Goodman]

I stand corrected. I am sorry, I was seduced by the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald).

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[Helen Goodman]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady is being tempted all the time. She must not give in to that temptation. Let us stick to the amendments.

[Helen Goodman]

Let me turn to the parts of the Bill that relate to the financial implications, which we also looked at in—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady must not make a Second Reading speech. Let us deal with the amendments that are before us.

[Helen Goodman]

One of the problems with looking at draft legislation rather than legislation in its final form is that it is not possible at that stage to say what the financial implications across the United Kingdom might be. The Government would be forced not simply to identify the territorial extent of a Bill, as they do currently, but to look at the differential impact of clauses that apply across the United Kingdom. For example, some legislation could be applicable throughout the UK but have a greater effect in some places than in others. Let us take social security as an example. If unemployment is higher in Wales than in England and changes are made to the rate of jobseeker’s allowance, the impact in Wales will obviously be different from the impact in England. I am sure that that is not what the hon. Lady intends.

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[Mr Leigh]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. These amendments are really technical amendments, to insert “presenting” rather than “publishing”, but the hon. Lady is very much turning this into a Second Reading debate. She is not speaking to her own amendments.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is for the Chair to decide, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. I would point out that I am allowing a little bit of latitude and, in fairness, the hon. Lady has been brought back to the point, to which, in general, she is sticking at the moment. I will decide from the Chair how far we go.

[Helen Goodman]

I do not wish to delay the House any further on these technical amendments. I think I have made my point perfectly clear. I do not intend to push the amendments to a vote, but I hope that I have demonstrated a small number of the problems with this Bill.

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[Mark Lazarowicz]

I do not want to go over old intra-Scottish debates, but I recollect the hon. Gentleman and some of his colleagues voting on a Thames tunnel Bill. Its connection to Scotland seemed remote. However, let us leave that aside. I do not know whether he participated in the Olympics Bill—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We are drifting once again. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not be tempted further and will stick to the amendments.

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[Thomas Docherty]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if some Members believe that there are now two classes of MP, perhaps we should have two classes of pay and expenses so that we are not taking huge amounts of taxpayers’ cash?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Those points do not need to be answered. We must get back to the amendments.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I am sure that all Members on both sides of the House work as hard as they can for their constituents.

I have tried not to be diverted too much from the amendments, although, understandably, there have been a number of attempts to persuade me to deal with wider issues. Amendment 6 is at least an improvement on a bad provision, which not only implies that there will effectively be two Governments and two classes of MP, but does not make clear whether it applies only to primary legislation or, in addition, to secondary legislation, amendments to primary legislation and, indeed, private Members’ Bills. The amendment does at least try to make a bad Bill more consistent, and I hope that the House will support it. In fact, I hope that the entire Bill is thrown out on Third Reading, or following its passage through the House of Lords.

There is an important debate to be had on this issue. The amendments are intended to highlight some of the difficulties raised by the Bill, but I feel that if we are to have a debate on law-making in relation to MPs with constituencies outside England when it comes to decisions that apply only in England, we should debate that issue in its generality. Let us have a proper debate on whether there should be some matters on which MPs outside England should not vote, rather than cloaking that issue in discussions about a certificate. Let us deal with the real issue, rather than with what I consider to be a bogus issue and a diversion from the real concern that I accept is felt by some Members.

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[Thomas Docherty]

If the hon. Gentleman had held his proverbial horses for another 15 seconds, he might have heard the answer to that question.

Like many other Members who are present today, I am new to the House, but I understand that in previous Parliaments there was a gap between the Government’s publication of a draft Bill and their presentation of that Bill, and it is hugely regrettable that that does not happen now. I take the word of some of my more esteemed and knowledgeable colleagues who have served in earlier Parliaments, but I gather from them that it was pretty much standard practice. There would be a period of—wait for it—consultation on the Government’s draft proposal, involving Members, outside experts, and other interested parties. The Bill subsequently presented by the Government might differ significantly from the draft version. I assume that the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) is satisfied with that answer to his question, and that I can now move on.

The second issue that concerns me is the fact that a Bill whose title remains the same may contain clauses that are very different from those on which the Government originally consulted, or which did not exist at that stage. I can think of no better example than the Scotland Bill, which is currently being dealt with in the other place. It is now a very different Bill from the one that existed during the consultation phase, and contains a different set of powers and clauses. I believe that, in such circumstances, the draft stage of a Bill could be described as a false piece of advertising. A Secretary of State might, in good faith, publish a statement—I will not be drawn into discussing why it would be the Secretary of State rather than the Speaker, as was the case with the Scottish procedure that was mentioned before, but I am led to believe that many Secretaries of State in the present Government do act in good faith: the Minister told me that that is the case, and I never have any reason to doubt the Minister—to the effect that a Bill applied only to England, without recognising the obvious knock-on effects that it would have in Scotland. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) listed all the Bills that he said did not apply—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is going to speak to the amendments, but he should not be drawn into areas on which discussion is not allowed. I intend to allow a little bit of latitude on Third Reading, and I would not want the hon. Gentleman to use up his Third Reading speech at this stage.

[Thomas Docherty]

I assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that there is no danger of my using up my Third Reading speech at this stage, but, if I heard you correctly at the time, you allowed an exchange to take place about the Bills listed by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire—and there were some nods of agreement on the opposite Benches—in whose passage the Scottish National party and others had decided not to participate. Those parties, however, did decide to participate in debates on Bills that Government Members—and, crucially, a Secretary of State—might consider not to apply to Scotland. The most obvious example was the tuition fees legislation. I will not repeat the arguments contained in it, but when it was going through the House of Commons in, I believe, December, not only the SNP but the Welsh and Irish nationalists and the Ulster Unionists took part in the debate. A Secretary of State who may not know that that will happen when he or she publishes a draft Bill for consultation will surely, once the presentation stage is reached, have a much clearer idea of whether his or her statement was accurate, and whether Scottish Members should be allowed to participate.

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[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

The Minister refers to this being very complex. Why, therefore, did the Government not set up this commission a year ago? Will he apologise to the House for the fact that the Government did not set it up a year ago, and will he confirm that the reason why it was not set up was because it was blocked by the Liberal Democrats?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. As Mr Chope should know, we must keep our powder dry on that point until Third Reading. I ask the Minister not to be tempted.

[Mr Harper]

I am often tempted by my hon. Friend, but I will resist that particular temptation, at least until Third Reading.

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[Mr Harper]

If my hon. Friend will permit me—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Once again we are being tempted to address matters that should properly be discussed on Third Reading, and I know that the Minister does not want to do that.

[Mr Harper]

You are always very quick to keep Members in order, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I was about to resist the temptation offered by my hon. Friend and instead ask him if he would permit me to come back to the point. I do not have to ask him now as you have instructed me not to address it now. We touched on this point in the written statement I tabled yesterday, and I will flesh it out on Third Reading.

Returning to the points the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife made on the amendments, we will not support them because they widen the scope of the Bill significantly and are therefore not just technical in nature. It is helpful that the Opposition have tabled them, because they have demonstrated, as I started to say, why this legislative approach is likely not to be the solution to the West Lothian question—this was the point suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh). If the West Lothian question is about how this House legislates, any solution will probably have to be carried out through Standing Orders so that this House remains in control of it rather than the courts being permitted to start interfering, which is the last thing we want.

Having dealt with the amendments as a whole, let me turn now, briefly, to amendment 6, which defines legislation as both primary and secondary legislation. It is worth making the point that there is no need to include secondary legislation because it is made by virtue of the powers given to Ministers in primary legislation.

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[Guto Bebb]

The thinking of the Labour party in Wales seems to be that it is perfectly fine for Welsh Labour Members to be Ministers and make decisions that affect England, but that it is not acceptable for the Prime Minister to appoint an English MP to serve in Wales. It is that dual standard that annoys people. Ultimately, we have to deal with the issue, because the threat to the Union will come not from Wales but from disgruntled members of the electorate in England. That is the issue that we must face.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am sure that an occasional mention of the Bill would be helpful to everyone.

[Thomas Docherty]

You are absolutely right, Mr Deputy Speaker. An issue that has not quite been covered in the Third Reading of the Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill is the question of what is in the minds of members of the Welsh Labour party. It is not for me to comment—that is one of the benefits of devolution—but it is valid to ask what would happen if a Secretary of State signed off a Bill but effectively said, “This is my Bill; I am not going to vote for it.” In December, as the Liberal Democrats raced through the 17 different positions that they tried to adopt on tuition fees, at one point there was a suggestion that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills would not vote on his own legislation, which would have been completely absurd. Under the Bill—and this is an issue that the commission must address—we must consider what would happen if, as we have seen in the past, a Secretary of State introduces legislation in which they do not have any constituency interest within the four nations of the United Kingdom, never mind the question of how we define England.

I must challenge the hon. Member for West Worcestershire on what she said about understanding England. As hon. Members can tell from my accent, I did not have the privilege of a Scottish education. I was brought up in west Cumbria, and I can assure the hon. Lady that the people of west Cumbria do not believe that she understands their problems or what is best for them. I am pretty sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) would suggest that the Conservative party does not have a Scooby about the issues in the north-east of England. I am pretty sure, Mr Deputy Speaker—of course, you are entirely impartial—that other constituencies in the north of England would suggest that Conservatives do not understand them. Equally, I have heard Government Members suggest that the Labour party does not understand parts of their country. The notion that we have a single, homogenous England in all its pleasant greenness with a perfect political structure is wrong. Regrettably, that goes back to the argument about regional assemblies.

In the past few days, we have dealt with infrastructure projects. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and others have discussed the Olympics, and we have discussed Crossrail in the past. The Crossrail Bill contained many provisions that related purely to London and nearby railway lines, yet it underwent a contentious, long, laborious process. It took two years, I think, to introduce that Bill, with the support of Members from Worcestershire, Dunfermline, Berwick, Edinburgh and other areas. That was the right thing to do but, regrettably, under the Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill—and I suspect that this will be something that the commission will examine—such issues would not be dealt with. If there is a proposal to bulldoze large parts of London, the decision on whether that is right or wrong should, under the logic of the argument that the hon. Lady and other hon. Members have sought to generate, be made by London MPs.

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[Thomas Docherty]

I apologise. It just goes to show the benefits of living in a United Kingdom; otherwise I would not be learning that geography lesson.

Under that rule, the Speaker makes the decision. You would, Mr Deputy Speaker, pull me up if I followed the example of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and gave seven centuries’ worth of history on the role of the Speaker and how it has changed—and, indeed, the excellent role of the Chairman of Ways and Means and how it has changed in the past 700 years. The Speaker’s role is to be an impartial judge. To give a simple example, let us say for the sake of argument that Mr Murdo Fraser becomes leader of this new party. If he wants a name for a party that supports the Conservatives at that level, that backs Tory policies but is not officially Tory, I must counsel him that the title “Liberal Democrats” has already been taken, so he will have to think of another one. If Mr Fraser’s new party were to win 27 of the 51 or 52 seats that there will be in Scotland at the next general election, but thanks to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), we were to sweep to power at the next general election, it might well be possible—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am sure the hon. Gentleman wants to come back to the Bill and mention that a little more. We are drifting all round the country from Doncaster to the history of the Chairman of Ways and Means. I can assure him that the post is not 700 years old, but we do not want to get into a debate like that, do we? We want to stick to Third Reading, as I know the hon. Gentleman is now going to do.

[Thomas Docherty]

If I had been able to finish the sentence, I was about to say—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman should not tempt me. I do not need to wait for the last sentence. I was listening to the previous 20 sentences, which also led me to believe that the hon. Gentleman had gone off the Bill.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your kind words, as ever.

Under the powers in the Bill, it is possible that one of my right hon. Friends, as Secretary of State for Education, might seek to exclude the 26 or 27 Scottish progressives or whatever they are called from legislation in order to get a majority. It is possible that the reverse might be true. There are Bills or parts of Bills that apply to Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales, where the current Government—not under the leadership of the Minister or his colleagues, but under some other Secretary of State—might seek to use this Bill to exclude Members unfairly in order to get legislation through. That is why the idea that, under the Bill, the Secretary of State should be the person who decides which pieces of legislation are English only, Welsh only or English and Welsh only is both ludicrous and loaded.

It is disappointing that the Bill does not seek to answer the question how Select Committees or oral questions will work. It is reasonable for Government Members to take a great interest in Scottish questions. We are always touched by the number of Conservatives who table questions relating to Scotland, but the Bill does not seek to deal with the fact that English MPs are scrutinising—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. As hon. Members know, the Bill is not about questions. It is about legislation, and we will stick to speaking about legislation on Third Reading.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker. Obviously, when at Question Time we are debating proposed Government legislation, it will still be perfectly in order, as I understand it, for Members on both sides of the House to challenge the Secretary of State about that, even if it does not cover their territories. The same is true of Select Committees, which do an excellent job of examining legislation as it is going through. I have the privilege of serving on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which is an interesting Committee not only because of the policy matter, but because some of that applies to the whole United Kingdom and some to devolved areas, such as Scotland. The lines are blurred.

We have been having a big debate about the future of fisheries policy and the common agricultural policy. That will require legislation in future. I know, for example, that some Members on both sides are in favour of pulling out of the common fisheries policy. I will not be drawn into that argument, but the Select Committee will clearly consider the issue. Does that apply to Scotland, to England or to the United Kingdom as a whole? I do not see how the Bill, as well meaning as the hon. Member for West Worcestershire intended it to be, deals with how we can still scrutinise matters through Select Committees and put together reports that could be fairly damning, but not carry out similar scrutiny on the Floor of the House.

The Bill could have another effect which I am sure was never intended. It is my understanding that if a major piece of legislation falls in this place, that is regarded historically as a vote of no confidence in the Government. There is a perfectly reasonable suggestion to be made that as a result of this Bill, a health Bill, for example, which was a substantive piece of legislation and did not command the support of the membership of the party in England, could be defeated. Would that therefore automatically be seen as the trigger for a no confidence motion? That has not been dealt with adequately in the Bill. I hope the Minister will give us some guidance on his thinking and whether the West Lothian question could tackle the issue.