Lord Lansley
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(10 years, 6 months ago)
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The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)
I beg to move motion 3—Petitions—
That this House supports the establishment, at the start of the next Parliament, of a collaborative e-petitions system, which enables members of the public to petition the House of Commons and press for action from Government; and calls on the Procedure Committee to work with the Government and other interested parties on the development of detailed proposals.
Mr Speaker
With this, we shall discuss the following:
Amendment (a) to motion 3, line 1, leave out from “House” to end and add
‘believes that the House of Commons should have its own e-petitions website, administered and controlled by this House and separate from that of the Government, though for cost saving purposes sharing the existing Government platform, that any hon. Member should be able to propose an e-petition for debate, regardless of the number of signatures the e-petition has obtained, that the Backbench Business Committee should allocate time on Mondays in Westminster Hall for debates arising from e-petitions directed to the House of Commons, but that any debate on a petition directed to Government should take place in Government time, that members of the public should be provided at the gateway to the websites with full information about how to ensure a petition is in order and to which institution their petition should most appropriately be directed, and that the House’s e-petitions websites should make it clear that the public may choose instead to contact their local hon. Member about an issue directly; and invites the Procedure Committee, consulting as appropriate with the Government, the Backbench Business Committee and any other interested parties, to develop a system meeting these objectives and to return to the House with proposals which may be implemented from the start of the next Parliament.’.
Motion 4—Parliamentary Privilege—
That, in light of the recommendations contained in paragraphs 226 and 227 of the report of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, HC 100, this House resolves that legislation creating individual rights which could impinge on the activities of the House should in future contain express provision to this effect.
Motion 5—Programming—
That this House approves the recommendation of the Procedure Committee in its Sixth Report of 2013-14, Programming: proposal for a trial of new arrangements for the tabling of amendments to bills at report stage, HC 1220, that a trial should take place for the course of the 2014-15 Session of a three day deadline for the tabling of amendments and new clauses/schedules at report stage of all programmed bills.
Motion 6—Calling of Amendments at the end of Debate (Amendments to Standing Orders)—
That Standing Order No. 33 (Calling of amendments at the end of debate) shall be repealed and the following Standing Order made:
‘Amendments to address in answer to the Queen’s Speech
(1) In respect of a motion for an address in answer to Her Majesty’s Speech, the Speaker may select up to four amendments of which notice has been given.
(2) No amendment may be selected before the penultimate day of the debate on such a motion.
(3) If, on the last day on which such a motion is debated in the House, an amendment to it proposed by the Leader of the Opposition shall have been disposed of at or after the expiration of the time for opposed business, any further amendments selected by the Speaker may thereupon be moved, and the question thereon shall be put forthwith.’.
Mr Lansley
We move on to happier subjects. I will speak first to the motion on e-petitions. I will also address the other motions in my name, on parliamentary privilege and on Standing Order No. 33, and I will seek to move them formally at the end of the debate. I will also address the motion relating to programming, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) and is supported by the Government.
Hon. Members may recall that, following the work of both the Procedure Committee and the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, I have previously undertaken to bring forward proposals for an improved e-petitions system. I want to build on the successful features of the current system, which has seen more than 10 million individuals sign one or more of the 27,500 e-petitions that have been submitted, 145 of which have reached 10,000 signatures, leading to a formal response from the Government. Of those, 29 petitions have reached 100,000 signatures and become eligible to be considered for debate, 25 of which have been debated.
The system provides a straightforward means by which people can submit a petition to raise an issue and press for action. As we have seen in debates such as those on Hillsborough, the badger cull, Sophie’s choice and the ban on female genital mutilation, petitions can be and are debated in Parliament. However, the system by which they are submitted is not approved or in any way owned by Parliament, and that is what I want to change. I want Parliament to share in the ownership of a modern e-petitions system that allows people to petition their Parliament, engage their elected representatives and, where appropriate, get a response from their Government.
I have already held constructive discussions with a number of interested parties throughout the House on the principles of a new system, but a lot of stakeholders are involved and there is a lot of detail to be worked out. I am therefore not initially coming to the House with a fully worked up blueprint for approval. I want to work with others on some ideas that will produce the best result for petitioners, who are our constituents. This is a therefore a paving motion, which will allow the House to agree on the principle that a new system should be jointly owned and run by the Government and the House of Commons.
To develop the detail of the new system with the House, the Government need a partner with which to work. We therefore propose that the Procedure Committee acts on behalf of the House in helping to shape the proposals. There will, no doubt, be other interested parties in the House and outside who will want to contribute, and that is entirely welcome.
I wish to refer briefly to amendment (a) to the e-petitions motion, tabled by the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen). I confess that I am disappointed that he has felt the need to table an amendment that is largely about the detail of the new system, not least because those are exactly the sorts of discussions that I hope we can have as we develop it. I do not disagree with all the elements that he suggests, but I am confused by an amendment that rejects the notion of a collaborative system yet goes on to envisage the sharing of the existing Government platform. The amendment is internally inconsistent and, I would argue, flawed in principle as a consequence. I cannot, in any case, imagine what the public would make of our establishing two competing and overlapping e-petition systems, which would be the effect of the amendment.
The hon. Gentleman is usually, and quite volubly, in the business of calling for the Executive to work in partnership with Parliament on legislation, on constitutional principles and on much else beyond. That is exactly what I am offering on e-petitions. It would be uncharacteristic of him to turn down such an offer, so I hope that he might not move his amendment.
I hope that a new system can provide better service and support for petitioners. It would provide more flexibility for the House to consider e-petitions in a variety of ways and an enhanced capacity for the House to ensure that the Government respond to those petitions in a significant and adequate manner.
The use of the platform already developed by the Government Digital Service will minimise the costs of the new system. Any additional staff costs will depend largely on the level and nature of the support provided to petitioners, and it may be that it can best be provided by the House’s outreach and information service. You will recall, Mr Speaker, that in the medium-term financial plan the House of Commons Commission has envisaged the provision of some modest support of that kind for a new e-petitions service.
I do not seek to hide the scale of the system. Just under 10,000 petitions are submitted each year—the number settled down after an initial burst in 2011 to about 20 per day, which is a lot of petitions. The moderating, monitoring and sifting of those petitions is a considerable task, but the rules relating to them can make it a manageable, and I think a fair one. Whether we have a petitions committee to govern that process is a matter for discussion. I confess that I am in favour of some form of petitions committee to act on behalf of the House, to develop engagement with the public on petitions, and in the longer term to liaise with Government on e-petitions and the system. For the avoidance of doubt, this motion and any proposals we have do not impinge at all on the existing paper petitions system. That is a matter for the House, and in particular the Procedure Committee.
The existing Government system will be taken down when Parliament is dissolved at the end of March next year. To ensure that a new system, based on the principles that I hope we can endorse today, is up and running from the start of the new Parliament, we must have reached agreement on the details of that new system by the end of this year, when I hope the House will be able to debate and decide on our joint proposals. With that in mind, I ask the House to approve the motion to allow the work we have started to continue, in close consultation with the Procedure Committee, as proposed.
The Government are happy to support the proposal from the Procedure Committee in the motion on programming, which I hope will benefit the whole House. As hon. Members know, the Government have already addressed concerns expressed about Report stage by providing more time where necessary, with the result that fewer groups of amendments are now left undebated than in the last Parliament. In this Session alone, no fewer than 11 Bills have benefited from more than one day on Report. I remind the House that there were only 10 such Bills in the whole of the previous Parliament.
By extending the deadline for the submission of amendments on Report from two to three days, the Government will be able to take full account of the number of amendments selected and grouped before tabling the supplementary programme motion. That will allow us better to match the available time to the weight and nature of amendments tabled. The deadline will rightly still be subject to the discretion of Mr Speaker. I emphasise that the Government will continue to seek to table amendments one week in advance of Report.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
On the supplementary programme motions, I have had to wrestle with getting the amount of time for each group of amendments correct when drafting programme motions. Does my right hon. Friend propose that in each case the Government will use knives to allocate time for each group of amendments, or will they try to balance that—perhaps in conversation with the House—with what they think is the demand? In some cases, it may be better just to let the debate fall in the usual way. I am not sure from the motion what is being proposed.
Mr Lansley
As my hon. Friend will recall from his experience of these matters, we sometimes believe it necessary to introduce what are known colloquially as “knives” into the programme motion to specify when discussion on certain groups of new clauses or amendments is to be concluded. However, we discuss that with the usual channels, and we try to ensure that the House gets the opportunity to debate all significant groups of amendments. The process of deciding whether we should do that or—as we sometimes rightly allow—whether to allow the debate on the amendments to proceed naturally, as it were, is not changed by the motion.
In effect, the motion creates during its trial period an agreement across the House that amendments on Report should be tabled three rather than two days earlier. The benefit of that is that we are more likely to get the programme motion right and not find, as has happened in the past as my hon. Friend will recall, that Opposition or Back-Bench amendments are tabled on Report at quite a late stage and at a time when it is very difficult—not to put too fine a point on it—to incorporate them successfully into a programme motion that understands where the weight of the debate will be. That is what this motion is principally about. A trial period in the next Session would enable us to see whether the proposal turns out to benefit Back Benchers and whether there are any unforeseen disadvantages. I am pleased that the Procedure Committee has secured the support of the Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition for the trial period, and has committed to reviewing its operation towards the end of the next Session. If judged successful, the Government will support a permanent change.
Let me clarify that we start from a shared understanding that we use the term parliamentary privilege to describe a fundamental constitutional principle that guarantees freedom of speech in Parliament and allows us in this House to work on behalf of our constituents without the threat of interference from the courts. The motion on parliamentary privilege arises from the work of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, which was established to consider the Government’s White Paper on that subject published in 2012. I place on record my thanks for the diligent work of the Committee on that complex issue, and I stress that, as set out in the Government’s formal response, we agree with the Committee in its central conclusion that there is no strong case for comprehensive codification. None the less, there are steps that the House can take—I stress that the operation of parliamentary privilege is a matter for the House rather than Government—to provide greater clarity.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for his endorsement of the work of the Committee on which I served. Will he take this opportunity to make clear that we enjoy parliamentary privilege not as a privilege but as an obligation and duty? It is a freedom we hold on behalf of our constituents; it is a protection for our constituents that their elected representatives can enjoy limited immunity in respect only of what we do in this House, so that we can act in their interests without fear or favour. It does not protect us from any aspect of criminal law should we commit any ordinary criminal offence, which is how it should be.
Mr Lansley
I am hoping to make absolutely clear that this motion is in no sense about the law not applying equally to us as it would to any other member of the public. It is about what happens in this House and its proceedings, which require to be protected. Parliamentary privilege may have originated centuries ago, but it must always remain true. It may take a different character in terms of judicial activism, rather than Executive action, but none the less on behalf of our constituents we require what we do here to be done without fear or favour, and without risk of impeachment or prejudice from external parties. As my hon. Friend says, it is important for that privilege to be maintained for the benefit of our constituents.
The motion before the House is a means by which I hope we can provide the clarity necessary for the effective operation of parliamentary privilege. An equivalent motion was agreed by the House of Lords on 20 March this year, after a full debate. In essence, it calls for clarity in the application of any particular legislation to Parliament. The need for further clarification on that point arises because there is some legal uncertainty as to the consequences of a decision of the courts in the Graham-Campbell case of 1935, which held that the protection afforded to this House by the doctrine of parliamentary privilege was wide. The scope of parliamentary privilege has been revisited by the courts and commentators in more recent times—notably by the Supreme Court in the 2010 Chaytor case. However, the Graham-Campbell case has not been expressly overruled, which has sometimes led to uncertainty over what needs to be said in an Act intended to apply to Parliament. The boundaries of parliamentary privilege will in practice be determined by the courts on a case-by-case basis, so it is helpful to them if legislation makes clear Parliament’s intent when legislating in areas that might encroach on those boundaries. That is why this motion provides for explicit provision on that point in cases of doubt.
In practice, that will require discussions between parliamentary counsel and the authorities of the two Houses on whether relevant provisions in Bills should apply to the activities of the two Houses, and for there to be express provision in the Bill where necessary. That is a sensible and pragmatic move towards providing greater clarity on a relatively obscure but important issue. As a matter of principle, I am sure we all agree that the law of the land should apply equally to Parliament, subject where appropriate to the protections of parliamentary privilege. I hope the House will agree to the motion so as to provide for that consistency across the two Houses.
Mr Harper
Of the two recommendations in the report by the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, the second was for the Government to take steps to ensure that Departments complied with the official guidance, issued by the Treasury Solicitor, to consult with the House authorities on legislation. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government will do that in every case? The report said that it happened in some cases, but not in every case.
Mr Lansley
Yes, my hon. Friend is right. It was not an invariable practice. A moment ago I spoke about the necessity for discussions between parliamentary counsel and the authorities of the two Houses, and I hope that those discussions will enable us to meet the recommendations of the Joint Committee. That is important.
What has, in part, led to the necessity of the motion is that different Bills have taken different approaches, sometimes seeing it as necessary to disapply parliamentary privilege and in other cases seeking to make it clear in legislation that parliamentary privilege applies. Our general proposition is that it is not required to say that parliamentary privilege applies—it does apply. However, we need to make it clear where the provisions of a Bill intend to have an effect on Parliament. In particular, we need to identify and specify where they may encroach on the boundaries of parliamentary privilege, so that the courts have an unambiguous legislative provision that sets out to what extent Parliament has determined that the law, in that respect, applies to it.
Mr Jenkin
It is important to emphasise that parliamentary privilege rests solely on an understanding between the courts and Parliament, albeit that that rests on article 9 of the Bill of Rights. It is implicit that the Bill of Rights overrides every other Act of Parliament. All we are saying in the motion, for the avoidance of doubt, is that that is the case unless an Act of Parliament specifically says otherwise. In the absence of any provision in any Act of Parliament, article 9 applies and the courts, who do not wish to interfere in the proceedings of Parliament, will respect that.
Mr Lansley
Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend and he expresses that very helpfully. That is precisely what we are looking for. We do not suggest that it is not the responsibility of the courts to determine to what extent legislation applies, but that Parliament, through these legislative provisions and the discussions that will lead to them, should give the courts a clear expression of where in legislation that boundary applies, and legislation should apply, to Parliament in any particular instance. It must be in the best interests of this House, Parliament and the courts for us to be clear about what we intend to achieve in legislation. That is principally what we are trying to do.
Mr Jenkin
I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend again. The resolution does not need to be followed by any legislation. It is implicit that article 9 applies—end of story. The only time legislation might impinge on article 9, and the only time we are saying that it could possibly impinge on article 9, is if Parliament expresses that explicitly in a subsequent Act of Parliament. However, we do not anticipate doing that, so article 9 applies.
Mr Lansley
I agree with my hon. Friend. The motion is not about giving rise to legislation. It is about this House sharing directly, in the same terms as the House of Lords, an expression about how we should frame legislation in future to make clear the relationship between this House, and the privilege applying to this House, and legislation, particularly in circumstances in which legislation is intended to apply to this House and its activities. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to agree with that.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I want to be clear that the Leader of the House is endorsing paragraphs 226 and 227 of the report in terms, because they are quite explicit. They set out the position. On the one hand, the objective is simple; on the other, it is quite complex. It is important, for the purposes of this debate, that the words of our conclusions on these matters are explicitly set out and not just referred to as paragraphs 226 and 227.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend will forgive me if I say that I am setting out to secure the agreement of the House on the motion before us. What we intend should be in the motion before us, and not what is beyond or additional to it. We intend to achieve just that.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is free to make his own contribution to the debate. For my part, I hope I have explained what we intend to achieve through the motion. Colleagues will have had the opportunity to look at the debate in the House of Lords, and I hope that exactly the same was clear from the nature of that debate. The purpose is to ensure that we have, in both Houses, an understanding that we should not have mutually conflicting approaches to legislation. We should approach legislation in a consistent fashion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) told us, we should have a way of recognising the application of parliamentary privilege to the proceedings of this House. We should also ensure that, in so far as we intend legislation to apply to this House and where it may have an impact on the boundaries of parliamentary privilege, we put express provisions in the legislation to show, for Parliament’s purposes, what we believe the nature of those provisions and their application should be. That is what we are setting out to do.
On proposed new Standing Order No. 33, Members may recall, from the debate on the motion for an address in answer to the Queen’s Speech last May, that the current Standing Order does not provide absolute clarity on the number of amendments that may be selected on the final day of the debate. To be clear, a revised Standing Order is not an attempt to prevent you, Mr Speaker, from selecting an amendment, as you did on that occasion. It would not prevent you from doing that. As you will recall, you selected an amendment signed by Back Benchers on the omission from the Gracious Speech of an EU referendum Bill. That was, in fact, the second amendment selected, in line with normal practice. The third amendment selected, tabled by Plaid Cymru Members, was the one beyond normal practice that would not, under previous practice, have been allowed.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will recall that he put down a motion on the Order Paper last autumn to restrict Mr Speaker’s discretion to accepting only three amendments. I am glad, as the person who blocked that original motion, that he has had second thoughts and is now going to allow Mr Speaker to select up to four amendments. Can my right hon. Friend explain why he feels we need to inhibit Mr Speaker exercising his discretion in this matter?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend asks me to complete my speech, which, happily, is what I intend to do.
The interpretation of the Standing Order that allowed the selection of the third amendment on that final day leaves open the possibility of an unlimited number of amendments for separate debate. That introduces both an unwelcome element of uncertainty, in particular if Members were to table several amendments regretting the exclusion of their favourite Bill from the Queen’s Speech. I am not sure that Members or the Chair would want such a rich choice; nor do I think it was the intention of the Standing Order, when it was originally drafted, to permit votes.
What I am seeking, for the benefit of the House, is greater certainty. Members will want to know the maximum number of amendments that may be selected in order to judge whether to table one themselves. It is a matter of degree as to whether the total number of amendments selected should be limited to three or four. Do we want to spend more time debating or voting? The question in my mind originally was: what is the purpose of amendments, principally when the debate on the motion for an address is concerned? It is, essentially, an opportunity for competing views on the legislative programme as a whole to be debated. Therefore, my original preference is for what we had thought was the status quo—that is, three amendments under the Standing Order—but I am congenitally relaxed about the number being four.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
It is good to see the Leader of the House congenitally relaxing in the Chamber. Looking back at the record, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is only since the second world war that we decided to choose so few amendments to the Queen’s Speech. It was, in fact, a regular occurrence previously to see six or eight amendments—or even 13 in 1904. Why has he picked on four for today’s motion?
Mr Lansley
I picked on four because that was the number recommended by the Procedure Committee as its preferred figure—and I think that is right, actually. It seems to me that going further would tip the balance too far. I take the shadow Leader of the House’s point about what might have happened in the further reaches of the last century, but for nearly 40 years we operated on the basis of having no more than three amendments. Technically, and strictly, the Standing Order was not unambiguous. As it turned out, it had been interpreted previously as meaning three amendments, but it was capable of being interpreted as meaning more, or any number. In my view, it is not the purpose of Standing Orders to be ambiguous; their purpose is to be clear. The Procedure Committee took the view in its original proposal that four was appropriate. I was not of that view, but I am content to support it: there is no point in having a Procedure Committee and then not listening to it; we listened very carefully.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
While the Leader of the House is in listening mode to Select Committee Chairs, I should advertise the fact that today the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee published our report on fixed-term Parliaments. This is the first time that we know we are in the last year of a Parliament—from one end to the other. Will the right hon. Gentleman consider, therefore, whether this is an appropriate time to use the House for purposes other than passing Government legislation? Of course that needs to happen, but we could have more private Member’s debates, more Adjournment debates, more consideration of policy and, dare I say it, more amendments to the Queen’s Speech and on important policy issues—ahead of the public taking a decision in 363 days’ time.
Mr Lansley
Happily, I have had an opportunity to read the report of the hon. Gentleman’s Select Committee. As his Committee was sitting earlier this morning, he was not in his place for business questions, when I took an opportunity to refer to the report. His Committee pointed out that the certainty surrounding a fixed-term Parliament provides greater opportunity for the planning of legislation, with a greater understanding of how much legislative time will be available. When he hears the Queen’s Speech early next month, he will see that a substantial legislative programme is intended for the full Session. That will not prevent us from meeting our obligations under Standing Orders for Back-Bench debates, Opposition time and other requirements. Indeed, in this Session, we have exceeded them, so we are already providing time for precisely the things that the hon. Gentleman seeks.
Mr Chope
Let me draw out my right hon. Friend further on whether he thinks it is a good idea that Back Benchers should be able collectively to table amendments in the Queen’s Speech debates. It obviously struck a chord with the people when that happened—on the issue of the EU referendum—during the last Queen’s Speech debates. Were there no coalition after the next election and three Opposition parties with reasonable representation, Mr Speaker might feel that his discretion had to be exercised in favour of those Opposition parties. It is possible that, even with four amendments, the opportunity for Back Benchers to put forward amendments in the hope of their being selected by Mr Speaker would be excluded. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he thinks it is important that Back Benchers have such an opportunity? If, after the next election, there were more official Opposition parties, would he recommend returning to the issue to allow for more than four amendments?
Mr Lansley
I would say two things about that. First, it is open to the House to reconsider these issues in the future. The original drafting of Standing Order No. 33 was partly a product of the political and party composition of the House in the 1970s. One could consider circumstances in which the House might think it appropriate to expand the opportunities in future for parties, were there a multiplicity of them, to express their collective view on the legislative programme as a whole through amendments.
That brings me to my second point. At the outset of this part of the debate, I want to emphasise that the issue did not really arise in relation to the Back-Bench amendment last year, because it was selectable and selected on the basis of the previous interpretation of the Standing Orders. That was not the issue—the issue was the additional Plaid Cymru amendment. However, were we to go down the path of thinking that on each motion for an address, it would be appropriate to debate the inclusion or exclusion of individual Bills, that would posit the question whether the purpose of the motion for an address is something other than an expression about the legislative programme as a whole. Amendments designed for that purpose should relate to the whole legislative programme rather than to individual Bills.
I have expressed my view on Standing Order No. 33, and I hope that the House will support the recommendations of the Procedure Committee in that respect. There are a number of motions before us, and I hope the House will support the making of these changes, which I believe will be positive. Notwithstanding the fact that we will have a good debate about them, they were intended to be brought forward in a consensual spirit.
Mr Allen
My hon. Friend is a very powerful person in the House, but she does not yet have the ability to respond to a debate and to accept or not accept the proposals in my amendment. I shall listen carefully to the Deputy Leader of the House’s response. When he accepts most—not all—of the points in the amendment, as he no doubt will, I am sure we will be able to reach an accommodation. Somebody has to stand up and say that the House of Commons is a separate institution. The Government cannot just walk in here and set up a petition system on our behalf when we are perfectly capable of doing it ourselves. As the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) says, we have some excellent and expert people, who do not need to understand the software and the hardware to be in control of a petitioning system. We need to ensure that all those things are in place before we say that it sounds like a great idea to get together and run one petitioning system on behalf of two separate, distinct and independent bodies that are elements of our democracy.
Let me move on to the particulars of my amendment. First, on the subject of Parliament’s having its own site, let me repeat that I am happy for the technology to be shared if it means we can save a little money and can get on with what we are meant to do in Parliament. I would rather that than continuing this move towards Parliament as a theme park, where the sittings of the House get in the way of tourist trips and movies being filmed—the Chamber could have been hired out this afternoon to some Hollywood film company. If we can make a little bit of money by sharing the Government’s platform and technology and can have less of the theme park stuff, we should all be happy about that and could have a little more self-respect about being a legislature.
My second point, which was also touched on by the hon. Member for Broxbourne, concerns Members of this House and their role in the process. It should not be possible, willy-nilly, for a newsroom campaign to get a debate going in the House of Commons. “What are we going to do next week with our House of Commons, lads? Let’s get a few ideas, a few headlines, a cut-out in the newspaper and a debate next week—but on what?” As with the paper petition, the process should take place through a Member of Parliament: I have to stand up at the end of business and make a little speech to get a paper petition in the bag behind the Speaker’s Chair. I own that petition. That is the way to reinforce a representative democracy, rather than have stuff coming in, willy-nilly, from people who cannot sleep, have seen something on late-night TV at 3 am and have got up a petition to try to get a debate in the House of Commons.
I urge members of the public: “use your Member of Parliament. Convince your representative. Get them to put the subject that concerns you before the House.” To me, it is just as valid if one person contacts their Member of Parliament—I am thinking of the elderly lady who I met at the weekend who is trying to find an extra 40 quid so that she is not turfed out of her house because of the bedroom tax—as if somebody down in Wapping decides that we should have a debate on the increase in fuel duty, for example.
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman’s argument seems in part to rest on the proposition that the petitions that have reached 100,000 signatures have somehow been generated in the newsroom of a newspaper. I have the list of 29 petitions that reached 100,000. I do not know of any, from what we know of them, that started in the newsroom of a newspaper. Which of those 29 does he think started in that way?
Mr Allen
I have not gone through the list. I am happy to go through it and write to the right hon. Gentleman if he does not have the researchers to enable him to do that job for himself. I am saying that if we introduce a system without the safeguards that I am proposing—a quasi-Government system based in the House of Commons—it will be very easy to generate petitions and put pressure on Parliament, and to put pressure on the Backbench Business Committee, and so on, to take time that would otherwise be used for purposes for which in the past we have all used our judgment.
My judgment, returning to the lady who has to find £40 out of a very low income to remain in the house where she was born 60 years ago, is that I want to get that subject raised on the Floor of the House because I think it is very important, but some other colleagues—I alluded to the all-party parliamentary groups—for one reason or another, or as a result of one influence or another, may want a specific debate. Let us all start equally. Let us hold sacrosanct the view that the House is a place where anyone may petition, anyone may convince their Member of Parliament and anyone, ultimately, time allowing, may get a debate. We should not compromise on that.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to wind up this debate.
I pay tribute to members of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege and the Procedure Committee for their service in considering a range of important parliamentary matters. In particular, I pay tribute to the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, who manages, with good grace and good humour, a wide range of views across that Select Committee, many of which are held with passion. He has skilfully steered the Government towards a sensible conclusion. Today, we thank him for his service.
The Leader of the House came slightly unstuck when explaining the motion on the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege. I think that it is fair to say that he attempted to skip over paragraph 225 of the report. I note that the former Deputy Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), is in his place. Paragraph 225 said that the Government’s original thinking was, to put it charitably, unnecessary. There are less nice things that could be said about it. What the Joint Committee said in paragraphs 226 and 227 was that the solution, if it was not to be legislation, would be to have the debate that we are having today and the debate that was led by the noble Lord Brabazon in the other place.
I note that the Deputy Leader of the House was not in his place when the shadow Leader of the House was at the Dispatch Box. In case he has not been briefed on her speech, she pressed the Government on the so-called Hamilton law. The Joint Committee was absolutely clear that that should be repealed. We support that. I understand that there might be an opportunity to deal with that next Wednesday, time allowing, ironically. Will the Government confirm that they will support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and the Opposition, so that we can take that iniquitous piece of legislation off the statute book?
There was a range of excellent contributions on privilege. It is good to see the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) joining the ranks of parliamentary experts on the Back Benches, if only temporarily. He explained better than most what privilege is. He was right that we should all do more to explain to the public and to those who watch our proceedings what privilege is, rather than rewriting it in a more modern fashion.
Speaking of a modern fashion, I turn to the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). I am sorry that he is temporarily not in his place. He has been described previously as a Victorian figure. It turns out that the observers who dubbed him that were out by two royal dynasties at least. He has been a driving force in the Procedure Committee.
The hon. Member for North East Somerset made some valid points about privilege, as did the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), another survivor of the Procedure Committee, who provided us with a good run through the history of the links between petitioning and privilege. He made an incredibly interesting point about privilege and e-petitions. Will the Deputy Leader of the House answer the following straightforward question? Privilege obviously extends to e-petitions that have been considered by the Backbench Business Committee or debated in Westminster Hall. However, if the Parliament website hosts an e-petition that has not yet reached 100,000 e-signatures, do the Government believe that by hosting it, Parliament has extended privilege to the e-petition? If the Deputy Leader of the House does not have the answer to that important question to hand and is yet to be inspired, it would be helpful if he wrote to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley and me, and placed the answer in the Library.
On Standing Order No. 33, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) queried the Opposition’s commitment to blocking the gagging attempt by the Government. Obviously, Hansard does not record who shouts, “Object!”, but my recollection is that one Member on each side of the House shouted in objection. I draw his attention to the names that appeared after that of the Chairman of the Procedure Committee on the counter-proposal. They included the names of the chair of the parliamentary Labour party, the shadow Leader of the House and all the Labour members of the Procedure Committee, including me. There is no doubt that we are not Johnny or Jane-come-latelies. We were clear from the start that this was an attempt by the Government to gag parliamentary democracy and speech. We welcome the Government’s reflection on the mood of Parliament.
It was right for Members to highlight the fact that Standing Order No. 33 assumes that the political make-up is that of a two-major-party system. We cannot predict what the future holds, but that means that it does not reflect the reality of this Parliament. We have, therefore, been clear that we do not support it.
On programming, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean acknowledged that he took the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 through at “a pace”. I can only assume that he was thinking of the pace of Usain Bolt. I want to remind him gently of how little time was spent on Lords amendments. When the Government came back from the House of Lords with the proposal to create two seats for the Isle of Wight, but not to create two seats for Anglesey, less than an hour of debate was provided by the Government for the contributions from the two Front Benches and the hon. Members for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) and for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). Perhaps, on reflection, that was not the finest hour of the hon. Member for Forest of Dean in upholding parliamentary democracy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) is right that legislation is the sole responsibility of Parliament. I praise her for being the main driver of the programming inquiry. She showed tenacity and vigour in hounding the Government to make the process fairer. The report is testimony to her hard work.
Finally, on e-petitions, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean argued for a single system to ensure that Ministers are held to account. He said, rightly, that we should not create further confusion for the public. The Procedure Committee drew attention to the concern that the e-petitions system is misleading because it refers to an e-petition as an easy way to influence Government. I am not sure that many Members of Parliament think that being in Parliament is an easy way to influence Government. We therefore believe that further work needs to be done to ensure that the public understand.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) estimates that 10 million people have signed petitions. That is an impressive number, but I wonder whether, as with some popular television shows, the number of individuals who have taken part is not quite the headline figure. [Interruption.] The Leader of the House corrects me and says that the figure refers to 10 million individual people and not the same people signing several petitions.
Thomas Docherty
I am happy to be corrected. However, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire made an important point about gathering evidence from those people. Perhaps the Deputy Leader of the House will say in his response whether the Government are considering contacting those who have previously e-petitioned them to ask for their feedback on the matter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) made some interesting points, to which I am sure the Procedure Committee will give due consideration. However, the amendment is premature, so I urge him not to press it today and to make a written and perhaps oral submission to the Committee in the near future.
It has been a very good debate and we have had a great history lesson as well as considering some key issues about parliamentary democracy. The Opposition support the motions.