Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I beg to move,

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

I thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing today’s debate to take place, and I thank hon. and right hon. Members from other parties who were in the Chamber yesterday to demonstrate the will of the House in the manner required under Standing Order No. 24. I should also like to acknowledge the role of Government business managers in extending our sitting hours today to accommodate this debate alongside the other business of the day.

We have already had two statements, an urgent question and a ten-minute rule motion, and there remains important business to follow, so I want to come as quickly as possible to the substance of the matter. But it is worth briefly reminding the House why this matter is considered to be both urgent and important, as required by Standing Order No. 24.

As I explained to the House yesterday, the House had its first day for Opposition motions on Wednesday 13 September, on which the two topics for debate were public sector pay and student tuition fees. Ministers and Back Benchers spoke vigorously in opposition to both motions, but when the questions were put, no voices were raised in opposition and both motions passed unanimously. The next day, the political commentator Paul Waugh—we would say his name slightly differently in Scotland—described the situation thus in the Huffington Post:

“Crucially, that meant there was no vote recorded other than unanimous approval, and no way to say how individual MPs voted.”

He went on:

“And this was no one-off. In a significant shift in the way the Government treats the Commons, Tory sources told me they have decided not to oppose any future Opposition Day motions. In other words, MPs can say whatever they like but as long as there’s a non-binding motion, the PM will tell her troops to give a collective ‘meh’. Government whips will instead focus on turning out the numbers for ‘votes that matter’, ie on legislation such as Brexit bills.”

That position, he later says,

“reduces all Opposition Days to mere debating society events, with no consequence.”

Mr Waugh is quite right in his assessment of the policy—if it is, in fact, Government policy. It was for that reason that I sought to raise the matter with the Leader of the House at business questions on 14 September. Her answer, I confess, was slightly less than reassuring:

“The right hon. Gentleman should not believe everything he reads in the press.”

That is good advice, and it is a lesson that we probably all learned some time ago, but it is something less than, or short of, the full-throated denial that one might have hoped for in the circumstances. The Leader of the House went on to make some comments about the debates that were not really relevant to the question, but she finished by saying:

“There is no question but that this Government continue to fully engage in Opposition day debates.”—[Official Report, 14 September 2017; Vol. 628, c. 997.]

The House needs to hear from the Leader of the House today what was meant by her words “fully engage”. Does she mean that the Government will do as their predecessors have done—engage in debate, agree where they agree, oppose where they do not and bring amendments where they wish to—or does she mean that the Government will, as Mr Waugh so memorably puts it, tell the troops to give this House “a collective ‘meh’”?

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a significant point about the importance of engaging in debates. Can he tell the House how many Liberal Democrats took part in the debate on the very important Finance Bill on 12 September? Could he confirm that it was none?

[Mr Carmichael]

I can see how this is going to proceed, and it will not be as I might have hoped. I had hoped we might raise the debate a little bit higher than that. The hon. and learned Lady is well aware that there are 12 Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament sitting in this Parliament, and if she cares to consult the record she will find that we play a full and constructive part in the proceedings of this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I am really grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning that point. I was going to come on to that, because it is really important to understand how minority Governments respond to defeats in Parliament. The right thing to do is what the Scottish Government do, which is to review, reflect and consult. Let me cite one issue as an example. We were defeated on fracking. What did we do? We did not attempt to ignore that vote. We consulted, reviewed and came back to Parliament with a ban on fracking. That is the responsible behaviour of a minority Government. I will take no lecture from the hon. Gentleman whose party’s commitment to democratic decisions extends to the hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) not even voting in the European Union referendum.

There are certain things that a party has to learn when it is in a minority situation in Parliament. The first lesson is that, sometimes, Governments get beat. They get beat here and they get beat in the Scottish Parliament. That is a feature of minority Government and it is alright—it happens. It happens normally in Parliaments right across Europe. This Government should not overly fret about it. They paid £1.25 billion to the Democratic Unionist party to ensure that they had a majority in the event of a threat to their existence. This House must also recognise how we can represent and reflect the democratic will of the people of this country. Sometimes I enjoy being lectured by Conservative Back Benchers about parliamentary sovereignty.

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Gentleman has twice mentioned sovereignty and respecting the will of the people. Does he respect the will of the people in the two referendums that have recently taken place—one in Scotland, and one on the European Union?

[Pete Wishart]

I will tell the hon. and learned Lady what I think about the will of the people. I was elected just a couple of months ago—I won an election. The gentleman I beat in that election is now in the House of Lords as an unelected Scottish Office peer. That is how to reject democracy; that is how to play fast and loose with the will of people—rejected one minute and ennobled the next. So I will take no lectures from the hon. and learned Lady.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

This debate purports to be about an important issue. It accuses the Government of the day of flouting the rules of Parliament and it is true that if that were the case, it would be fundamentally objectionable, because we live in a parliamentary democracy, where Parliament makes the laws that regulate our society, and the rule of law provides that no one is above the law, including parliamentarians. It is not the Conservative party that threatens the rule of law; it is the Labour party, because Labour members have, time and time again, stated that they would condone the flouting of our laws, passed in this Chamber. They would condone illegal strikes supported by the trade unions. It is the shadow Chancellor, not Members on the Government Benches, who has threatened the rule of law and our democracy.

This is a debate about procedure, but it is not just a debate about procedure; it is also a debate where the premise is flawed. There is an objection that the Government do not vote on Opposition days, but as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who applied for the debate, knows––having been part of the coalition Government that brought in Backbench Business debates—there is great value in debating important matters that affect the lives of our constituents without a binding vote or a commitment to take immediate action. Indeed, he is using a procedure in this debate, in this House today, which will have no substantive result other than the airing in public of this issue.

[Mr Carmichael]

The objection is not to the fact that the Government did not call the Division; it is that, not having called the Division, they do not then follow the will of the House; and indeed, that now it is apparently to be the Government policy to do so routinely. Does the hon. and learned Lady really not think that obnoxious?

[Lucy Frazer]

It is interesting that the right hon. Gentleman says the Government did not follow the will of the House. In the debate on public sector pay, the Government said very clearly that they would be flexible on that. Since that debate, the Prison Service and the police have had a pay increase, so it is completely inaccurate to say that the Government are not listening to the will of the House.

This is the third debate on procedure in which I have taken part in in two years and I have learned that other parties seem to value form over substance. They seem to value debating procedure rather than the issues at stake. In the previous Parliament, I had the honour of sitting on the Investigatory Powers Public Bill Committee. In that Committee, we spent much time at the outset listening to arguments from Opposition Members that there was insufficient time to debate the issues. However, looking at the record of those proceedings I can see that on Second Reading, 53 Conservatives contributed as against 13 for Labour, and that on Report, there were 43 Conservative contributions, as against 13 from Labour.

When I knock on doors, not one voter suggests to me that we should spend more time in this House on procedural matters about past debates. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland has brought a three-hour debate before this House at a time when there are many more important issues facing our country, such as Brexit—[Hon. Members: “He applied for it.”] He applied for it and Mr Speaker agreed to it. But the issues facing our country are Brexit, the economy, the NHS and education, issues that affect the daily lives of our constituents. It is those issues our constituents want us to discuss and not the procedure of this House.

Nomination of Members to Committees

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz]

No.

The motion that was agreed by the House in 1995 stated that “unless and until” the party that had a majority at the election loses it through by-elections or defections—not when the Whip is taken away—Standing Order No. 86(2) shall be interpreted

“in such a way as to give that party a majority on any standing committee.”

Let us look at the Standing Orders, which could be another reason why the Government are doing this. But, oh no, Standing Order No. 86(2) states clearly:

“In nominating such Members the Committee of Selection shall have regard to the qualifications of those Members…and to the composition of the House”.

The words “composition of the House” are found in other Standing Orders, too. I do not know if Members are aware, but Standing Orders are how the House does business. The Deputy Leader of the House knows that because he is a lawyer. He will know that the civil procedure rules are there for a specific purpose, and so it is with Standing Orders. They are there so that the House can do its business in a proper and orderly way. The Government, however, have no regard for the rules of the House. Why is the Leader of the House ignoring Standing Orders? What is her interpretation of the words “composition of the House”?

Perhaps the Government are relying on democracy. That is disingenuous, because the Government did not win the election. This is a minority Government. They did not get a mandate. The British people gave us their verdict, and what they wanted was to rein back the Government, and for the Opposition to scrutinise the Government and make them accountable. Public Bill Committees are where the British people expect us to reflect the views of our constituents, business, science, the financial system, the legal system and our fundamental rights—all the things that make up this thriving democratic country, with its devolved Governments that make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Many hon. Members said yesterday, “Don’t worry about the powers reserved to Ministers; we can make amendments in Committee.” They cannot. With this motion, Back Benchers cede the power to the Government to select Members and ensure the Government have the majority on Standing Committees. It will be impossible to amend the Bill. The Government are packing the Committees—the Whips are one step ahead of them all.

In his widely acclaimed speech on Thursday, the Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the EU said:

“That we are leaving is settled. How we leave is not.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2017; Vol. 628, c. 368.]

New evidence comes forward every day from the negotiations—or perhaps the lack of negotiations. Look at what happened to the party that went into coalition with the last Government: reduced in numbers, because they propped up a Government they could not control. Hon. Members will know in their heart what is right and the democratic thing to do.

Perhaps the Government are relying on the constitutional position. This minority Government are governing through a confidence and supply agreement. Who knows what will happen when the £1 billion runs out? May I ask the Leader of the House why the Government should have a majority on Committees when they do not command a majority from the country?

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Valerie Vaz]

No, I will not give way.

The Government did not even try to make it work. The Opposition’s names are very reasonable. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell), my hon. Friends the Members for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) and for Newport East (Jessica Morden) and even the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) are all very reasonable Members. I know that they would be pleased to sit down with the Government and work out a reasonable solution that would be in keeping with the constitutional position and the democratic will of the country—[Interruption.] This shows everybody that Government Members do not want to listen to the argument. They just want to interrupt—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman about my party, and maybe he will listen. Between 2010 and 2015, the Scottish National party had a majority in the Scottish Parliament, and with that majority we had a majority on the Committees of the Scottish Parliament. Unfortunately, we lost that majority last year by one seat. We had a much bigger percentage share of the vote than this Conservative Government have. What was the first thing we did when we accepted that result? We gave up the chair and the majority on each of the Scottish parliamentary Committees without a sigh of protest. That is how to respect parliamentary democracy and the outcome of the people, so I will take no lessons about the example set by my party.

[Lucy Frazer]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, if legislation that would otherwise go to Committee went instead to the Floor of the House, it would be passed because the Government have a majority to pass it? If that is true, is it not to be accepted that the Government have a majority?

[Pete Wishart]

Parliamentary democracy, and I say this candidly, is sometimes messy. There are sometimes issues and difficulties, but the way to do our business is enshrined in centuries of tradition and convention. We have a Second Reading, we send a Bill to Committee and then it comes back on Report. We then have a Third Reading before sending it to the unelected cronies down the corridor. That is how we do business in the House. Sometime it does not work out quite perfectly, and we have to accept that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

This is verbal gymnastics in action, and I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the Brexiteers contort themselves over the past couple of days. How anyone who believes in the parliamentary sovereignty that they claim to believe in—anyone who believes in the democratic mandate that we have as Members of this House—can vote for tonight’s motion is absolutely beyond me.

The Government do not have a working majority in this House. It says so on the House of Commons website, which states “Government Majority 0”, with a small star to indicate that there is a confidence and supply agreement. If the Government had a working majority, the DUP Members who are sitting behind me would be sitting opposite me on the Government Benches. DUP Members are not part of the Government. If they were, this motion would not be a necessity because the Government would have the majority that they claim to have.

The reality is that we are a Parliament of minorities, and the Government should live up to the rhetoric that we keep hearing from them about wanting to work with everyone, work across the aisle and work for different parties.

[Lucy Frazer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Patrick Grady]

I am conscious of the fact that there is not very much time. The Government should instead use the Committees for precisely what the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) suggested. We saw plenty of Government Back Benchers yesterday voting reluctantly for the second reading of the Brexit Bill, because they wanted that Bill to be improved up the stair in Committee. If the Government reflect the balance of power in the House in Committees, parties will genuinely be able to work together to improve legislation that is dealt with in Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson]

Because the proposals are so outrageous that they deserve to be knocked down completely, so we will vote against them. I say to the right hon. Gentleman and others that there is a real sense that having not won the election and having lost their majority, the Government are clinging to power by any means necessary.

[Lucy Frazer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

In June, there was a vote to leave the EU. Both the Labour and Conservative parties committed in their manifestos to deliver that, so we have a duty to deliver it. The question that arises is how we do it. How do we fulfil the promise to deliver it? There are a number of practical issues that we need to overcome. There are thousands of pieces of legislation that need to pass into our law. Many are technical changes, but we need to ensure that our laws are certain so that businesses are able to be clear about their future.

I listened carefully during the two-day debate to speeches made by Opposition and Conservative Members, by leavers and remainers. Well-respected Members on both sides of the House recognised the importance of ensuring that there are practical solutions to avoid our country’s legislative process becoming gridlocked. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) said that we cannot get rid of EU legislation overnight “without leaving enormous gaps.” The right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said that the task was “Byzantine in its complexity” and recognised the need to ensure that Ministers have

“latitude and flexibility to do what needs to be done”.—[Official Report, 7 September 2017; Vol. 628, c. 381.]

The method that this Government have put forward is not unprecedented for two reasons. First, as we have heard, the Labour Government in 1976 were in the minority and passed similar motions to ensure that they had a majority on Committees.

[Pete Wishart]

Will the hon. and learned Lady tell us what the sainted Margaret Thatcher thought about that arrangement in the 1970s?

[Lucy Frazer]

We can talk about what was said in the debate, but the outcome was that Labour secured a majority in Committee when it did not have one on the Floor of the House.

Yesterday, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) said that the previous Labour Government actually doubled the number of statutory instruments that introduced new laws, so if legislating through Committee is accepted, as it has been for many years, as a means of government, and if ensuring that the governing party has a majority was accepted by the Labour party when it was in power, it is inappropriate for Labour to object to that when it is proposed by Conservative Members.

[Mr Paul J. Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. and learned Lady not agree that a vital component of any legislature is check and balance through a committee system that will deliver quality legislation? Will extrapolating an artificial majority not simply dilute that ability to deliver quality scrutiny of legislation? This is, in effect, a power grab.

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. In every sitting, whether in the Chamber, the other place or in Committee, it is vital that there is scrutiny. The hon. Gentleman, however, is suggesting that Members in Committee do not scrutinise when they are on one side or the other. He will know, as I do, that that is simply incorrect. There is scrutiny at every stage of the parliamentary process.

I now come to the key point. It is right that this motion is passed, because the Conservative party is the single largest party. It was elected with 13 million votes. It has 56 more seats than the next largest party. As Labour argued in 1976, it is simply inappropriate to lump together all the Opposition parties and treat them as one party when they have different interests and perspectives. We cannot say, when we lump them all together, that they hold the balance of power—they simply do not.

[Helen Goodman]

The logic of the hon. and learned Lady’s position is that were the Conservative party to have 251 seats and the Labour party 250, with the other seats held by a variety of parties, it would still be right for the Conservative party to have a majority on every Committee. That is the logic of her argument. Is that what she is saying?

[Lucy Frazer]

What I am saying is that we need to assess the situation. At the moment the Conservatives have a significant majority. In fact, we have more seats than the Labour Government had in 1976 when they proposed such a measure.

As I said, the country voted in a referendum. The Labour party and this Government committed in their manifestos to deliver Brexit. We now need to do so. We need to deliver the democratic decision of the British people, and we need to do so in a way that is practical and expedient, while preserving the ability to scrutinise and debate. The motion will achieve that. As the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) has said, at the general election three months ago, the Labour party said it would implement its manifesto. It needs to do so, and to stop putting obstacles in the way of respecting the wishes of the British people.

Scheduling of Parliamentary Business

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

We welcome this debate and share the concerns about the arrangements for this parliamentary Session over the next two years. We agree that clarity is needed on the scheduling of Back-Bench and Opposition business.

Since we have come back, the pace at which the House’s usual arrangements have been put back in place has been woeful and unsatisfactory. There are only three full days left until the long summer recess, yet this House’s Select Committees are still not up and running, nor do we know the arrangements for its Standing and Statutory Instrument Committees. Given that they are going to be particularly burdened by the repeal Bill, we need clarity and certainty about them.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I think I heard earlier that neither the Scottish National party nor the Labour party has yet agreed on its own members for Select Committees—

[Valerie Vaz]

We have!

[Lucy Frazer]

I am sorry if I am in error, but it is only recently that it has been possible to agree on Select Committee membership and we are about to go into recess.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady for her intervention, because I can say with certainty that we are ready to supply SNP names for Select Committee membership, and I am pretty certain that the Labour party is in the same position.

You made a generous offer last week, Mr Speaker, to help facilitate arrangements for any political party that is finding it difficult to arrange its membership of Select Committees, but I do not know whether the Conservative party has approached you to fulfil that promise. It is not the Labour party or the SNP that is holding up the creation of Select Committees, but the Conservative party, so I ask it to make use of your very kind offer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joanna Cherry]

Yes. But if, as the Government have promised, the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill is going to guarantee all the rights that we already enjoy by virtue of our EU citizenship, the charter of fundamental rights should not be going. The charter defends all sorts of rights, such as data protection, children’s rights and the freestanding right to equality, which are not protected by the European convention on human rights.

[Lucy Frazer]

Would those rights not be protected when incorporated into our laws as British laws, notwithstanding that their source was the EU?

[Joanna Cherry]

The hon. and learned Lady is ably illustrating why we need a debate about this. Despite the fact that the EU charter of fundamental rights will not be part of domestic law, she thinks that those rights will, nevertheless, still be protected. Let us have a debate about how we are going to do that. That is my point. On the face of the Bill, it looks like these rights will be lost.

These rights are real. Just last week in the Supreme Court, a gentleman called John Walker was able to ensure equal pension rights for his husband thanks to EU law. That was a timely reminder of the value of EU law to our constituents. Those are important rights. What is more important than a married couple of two men or two women having the same pension rights as a straight couple? I personally find that very important, as I am sure do many other Members.

We cannot afford to fall behind the standard set by the European Union on human rights. But, on the face of it, the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill seems to be about to do that. We must insist on parliamentary time to debate these issues properly. I call on the Government to get their act together, have the courage of their convictions and bring the business to the Floor of the House. We can then debate some of the issues that I, and other hon. Members, have mentioned in a full and frank fashion. The Government should do that, rather than running scared from the policies that they were so keen to espouse when they thought they were going to have a whopping majority. They are not so keen now.