Deregulation Bill
Mark Field Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Anybody would think, from the way the Minister just presented his case, that this has been a smooth path and everything the Government intended from the very beginning. But there was only an amendment relating to the licence fee at all because of a Government Back-Bencher, the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen)—who may be able to catch your eye a little later, Madam Deputy Speaker—and we have a change only because in the Lords the Government’s position was overturned by three votes. I am, of course, proud that we now have a far more sensible set of propositions before us. I admit that the Liberal Democrat heart that is still beating within the Minister is probably on our side in this argument, but he might at least have shown that that heart still beats, rather than just deliver what his paymasters in the Conservative party have told him to deliver.
The truth is that Labour Members support the BBC licence fee for the foreseeable future, not out of ideological passion but simply because it has worked and because the vast majority of people in this country support it. Everybody comes up with other ideas; every Select Committee that has ever examined this issue has set out this, that and the other idea for us to consider, but at the end has said that the least worst option is the licence fee. Broadly speaking, that is what the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport decided in its report a couple of weeks ago.
Chris Bryant
Of course. I cannot think of anyone to whom I would want to give way more.
Mark Field
The lack of any other options on the Government Benches may have something to do with that. I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not mistake the broad support on the Government Benches for a different and less stringent sanctions regime for support for the TV licence. I very much support the idea of a TV licence, but we need somehow to rein back what has been allowed to happen with TV licence sanctions. That is what drives most of the support for this amendment.
Chris Bryant
I did not give way to the hon. Gentleman faute de mieux. He is right in what he says, and some Opposition Members are as passionate in their support for the licence fee as he is, as I am or as Tony Hall is but want a change to the rules on how the licence fee is administered and the penalties for those who do not pay. My noble Friend Baroness Corston put forward a cogent and moving argument, to which one would have to be hard-hearted not to listen, on the criminalisation aspects of the current situation. Our point, which won substantially in the House of Lords, was that we have a system that broadly works, and if we want to change it, it would be better to change it in the round, rather than simply changing the licence fee. Let me explain why.
The licence fee is not just about funding the BBC’s programming, although it is true that it provides £3.7 billion of investment in the arts, broadcasting and British culture through the BBC, which it is difficult to see how any other model would deliver to the same degree. In addition, it provides for a degree of competition for quality, as well as for audiences, with the other broadcasters. Thus, ITV wants to make high-quality drama and does so; many of the dramas people often associate with the BBC are actually made by ITV. Likewise, Channel 4 has a special role to play because of the original remit it was given to be edgy, alternative and sometimes naughty. It can perform that public service broadcasting role within the whole ecosystem only if the BBC licence fee also exists and if Channel 4 remains in public hands. I am sure that the Minister would agree with me on that one about Channel 4, even if some Conservative Members might not.
The Opposition believe that it is important that there is the licence fee, and that it is a massive investment in production and drama, not just the kind of long-form dramas that exist in American commercial broadcasting and are often very lucrative, but the short-form dramas, such as “The Casual Vacancy”, which has been on the BBC over the past few weeks. It was only three episodes long and it would be very difficult to make in any environment other than one where there is some form of subsidy. In news, current affairs, comedy and so many different areas, the BBC would not be able to perform the same function without the licence fee.
Labour Members have been critical of the difficult time the BBC has had. Of course it always has to strive to make its resources stretch further, but since 2010 it has had not only a tough financial settlement but top-slicing, with a significant amount of money—some hundreds of millions of pounds—going off to fund the roll-out of broadband around the country. In addition, S4C is, in the main, being paid for not by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport but out of the licence fee, and the World Service is being paid for not by the Foreign Office, but out of the licence fee.
Mark Field
I hope to catch your eye later, Madame Deputy Speaker, but it is pretty clear that there is no uncertainty whatsoever. The regulations have been in place for 42 years for good reason, so to sweep them away as is now proposed would be rather unwise. I hope that the Minister will provide a little meat on the bones of exactly why the Government now wish to do so, particularly given the strength of feeling among London MPs on both sides of the House and in the Lords.
Tom Brake
I will provide more explanation in a few minutes. I hope that it will satisfy my hon. Friend, but I suspect that it may not. We will have to wait and see. One point is that this is an issue only in London. I am not aware of a huge number of problems associated with it outside London. Perhaps there are such problems, but they certainly have not been drawn to my attention. The proposals will simply bring the approach in London into line with that in the rest of the country.
Tom Brake
The hon. Lady will hear what I have to say about enforcement notices, and she may want to pick that up among the points she will make should she catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The internet has created new opportunities for residents who want to enter into what has become known as the sharing economy, a catch-all term encompassing all asset owners who wish to share their asset with others in exchange for a fee. As a result, it is now easier than ever for residents to rent out their property to supplement their incomes and offer consumers new experiences. A cursory look at some of the websites facilitating such lettings reveals that thousands of London properties and rooms are available for short-term use, all of which potentially violate the current section 25.
Lords amendments 27 to 30 add additional safeguards in relation to the short-term use of London properties without planning permission in three ways. First, they stipulate that a property can be used as temporary sleeping accommodation only for a maximum of 90 nights per calendar year. That will ensure that the reforms provide residents with greater flexibility, but it will not create opportunities for the short-term letting of properties on a permanent basis. Secondly, they provide that the person providing the temporary sleeping accommodation must be liable for council tax. That requirement means that a property is used as a residence, because a property used as a hotel or hostel would be liable for business rates. Combined with the 90-night per calendar year limit, we believe that this provides an appropriate safeguard against short-term letting on an ongoing or permanent basis. Thirdly, they allow either the Secretary of State or the relevant planning authority with the Secretary of State’s consent to direct, where there is a strong amenity case for doing so, that the relaxation of section 25 does not apply to certain properties in certain areas. I hope that addresses the hon. Lady’s concerns.
Mark Field
Let us try to dig a little into precisely how big that concession is. Would the Minister allow local authorities, particularly those in central London, to exempt themselves from the exemptions in the entirety of their area—in other words, to tie themselves again to the 1973 Act—or is he suggesting that the concession would apply only to very limited stress areas?
Tom Brake
I am sure that my hon. Friend was listening carefully. I said that the Secretary of State would have to give consent. The Government are not proposing that local authorities should be allowed to decide unilaterally which areas are in and which are out. We want to facilitate something that is already clearly happening on a large scale in London—as far as I am aware, it happens elsewhere in the country without significant problems—to give individuals the flexibility to allow their properties to be rented on a short-term basis if there is an event, such as Wimbledon, during which they want to absent themselves.
Mark Field
Sensible, pragmatic regulations exempting the Greater London area from a short-lets free-for-all are, as we know, under acute threat. I appreciate that the Minister has to put his ministerial duties at the forefront today, but he will know that his mentor, the noble Lord Tope, was one of the leading lights in the House of Lords in trying to get a more sensible and pragmatic approach to the issue. I hope that even at this 11th hour we can have some comfort on an issue about which a number of London MPs on both sides of the House feel strongly.
It is recognised that our capital city is a place of particular hyper-mobility and hyper-diversity, where housing shortage is a perennial long-term problem. That lies at the heart of the regulations, which have now been in place for more than four decades. Unquestionably, the world has changed since 1973, but the big new idea behind the so-called sharing economy is being vigorously promoted through ferocious lobbying by commercial interests whose business model requires the sweeping away of these long-standing public interest safeguards.
The creation of a new trade body, the so-called Sharing Economy UK, is essentially a front for that commercial campaign. Frankly, it is akin to setting up a trade body of payday lenders to dictate financial services policy. I am sorry that the wool is being pulled over the Minister’s eyes as these self-professed independent voices dictate a commercially advantageous landscape. Meanwhile, scant regard is being paid to the interests of residents, particularly in central London. If this was really all about allowing home owners to undertake short-term holiday housing swaps, as the Government suggest, it is highly unlikely that a local authority would even be aware of such a brief arrangement and no enforcement action should be taken against the owner in such instances, as it would clearly be disproportionate.
Enforcement action in the City of Westminster is, at least, reserved for those situations in which the council becomes aware that properties are being let on a short-term basis all year round. The number of such properties is significant, as the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) pointed out, and the impact of this activity is hugely detrimental in our locality, leading to a diminution of housing stock, reduced security, increased antisocial behaviour, a breakdown in community cohesion and giving a green light to what can, at its worst, be fraudulent activity. Without the current safeguards, many social housing properties, for instance, are likely to be sub-let given how lucrative the short-stay market can become in central London.
I have spoken in the House about all these concerns before as the Bill has gently wended its way towards the statute book, so I shall not go into the specific detail again. However, I want to raise two further issues. First, flats in blocks in which short-term letting is taking place might find that the insurance policy of the entire building becomes invalid. Secondly, and most worryingly in many ways given the geopolitical problems we face, which are particularly acute here in London, national security concerns have been raised by the Metropolitan police about the absence of checks on those who can live in central London for up to 90 days a year through short-term lets. That is three months in which people can come and reside in London completely under the security radar. The provisions contain no prior notification process, so local authorities would be literally clueless about who was letting their property on a short-term basis and for how long.
Of course, a question was asked on this subject in another place to which we did not get a proper answer, so I will ask it again of the Minister. We have been told by the Metropolitan police that they rely heavily on article 5 of the Immigration (Hotel Records) Order 1972, both in proactive intelligence-led activity and in retrospective investigations, but that that power would be superseded by unchecked short-term letting. What assurances or safeguards have the Government sought from the police and Home Office that the legislation will not inadvertently create a grey area that can be exploited?
I fear that this will all end in tears, and I regret that. Even at this late stage I ask the Government carefully to assess the impact the changes to short lets will have and to consider some more robust safeguards. At the very least, I want to see owners having to notify the local authority of a short let and its length. Councils believe that they can set up an online notification system pretty easily, but that without such a system controlling short-term lets would be utterly impossible. I would also ask that the premises concerned must be the principal London residence of the owner offering the let. More importantly still, councils should also be able to request that the Government provide local exemptions to the provisions when there is a strong amenity case for doing so. I know that proposals were made in the other place and I regret that more thought has not been given to that practical safeguard. I hope that the Minister will give some thought to it, even at this late stage.
I should also like a provision that states that the total period of short lets in any one calendar year for a specific property should be no more than 30 days, as that should be sufficient for a bona fide residential property owner seeking the flexibility that many of us would like in this so-called sharing economy.
Members’ Paid Directorships and Consultancies
Mark Field Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Does the Leader of the House share my concern that, understandably perhaps, 10 weeks before an election this rather opportunistic motion is put forward? These issues are not for this House; they are for IPSA. After the expenses scandal, we set up IPSA to look at this and other issues. If we want to unravel what IPSA has done, either on this matter or on the issue of salaries, we do so at our peril.
Mr Hague
Salaries and allowances are for IPSA, but there have been independent reports on this issue. Again, I will come to that in a moment, but I just want to finish the point about the substantial increase in transparency that has rightly taken place in recent years. That does not mean we have finished the job of making Parliament more responsive to public concerns. The shadow Leader of the House has said some things about what will be in the Labour manifesto on this, but there will be matters about Parliament in the Conservative manifesto, including reducing the size of the House of Commons, and equalising the size of constituencies, thereby being fair to all parties and all constituencies, and saving money in the process.
House of Lords Reform
Mark Field Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, for this all too short debate about what we affectionately refer to as “the other place”, although it would be hard to imagine or conceive of another place like it in the world.
The House of Lords must now be about the most bizarre, absurd and ridiculous political institution anywhere in the world. Bloated, ermine coated and never been voted, it is now an affront to every sense and notion of democracy. There are now some 847 souls inhabiting the place, which makes it the largest political legislature anywhere in the world, save the National People’s Congress of China. Like the Chinese politburo, it is a stranger to democracy, but, unlike that, it cannot even claim to have a constituency or represent anyone whatever.
Who are these curious, strange people who inhabit this gold-plated, red-upholstered Narnia? The vast majority are appointed: some by an independent appointments authority, but the vast majority by the Prime Minister from lists drawn up by the three establishment Westminster parties. No other legislature in the world is composed quite like that, other than Lesotho in southern Africa.
Peers are not all appointed: 86 hereditary peers have a role in our democracy because of birth right. They can scrutinise, initiate and consider our legislation because they are the first son of a family that won a decisive battle in the middle ages. This is not an episode of “Game of Thrones”, but the fifth-largest economy in the western world.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I agree with much that the hon. Gentleman has said. Does he feel that it is any less desirable for there to be the first-born son of a family who have had an hereditary peerage for six or seven generations than it is for there to be to be a large-scale donor to a political party or a superannuated council leader? That seems to be how most of the people in that House have earned their places over the past 15 years.
Pete Wishart
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because I have a few choice words to say about the appointees to the House of Lords. If he bears with me, I will come to those very points.
We have the hereditaries, but to make the place even more bizarre and surreal, 26 places are reserved for bishops—but not just any ordinary bishops: they have to be Church of England bishops. The House of Lords is the only legislature in the world that reserves places for clerics other than the Islamic republic of Iran.
We cannot get rid of these people; they are not allowed to retire and they are not accountable to any constituency or electorate. The only way to get rid of them is through not the public of Great Britain, but the grim reaper. One of the few House of Lords reforms there have been in this Parliament is to allow these people to retire, but only one has come forward—so we made inducements to try to get them to retire. They can now use House of Lords facilities if they choose to retire, but they still will not do it.
This is a ridiculous and absurd institution. The average age of Members of the House of Lords is now 70. How much does this political circus cost? Last year, it was almost £100 million. Our friends in the House of Lords do not come cheap—of course, they should not. They can claim £300 a day just for turning up to work. If that is too much trouble for them, they can claim £150 a day for working from home. The average peer—if there is such a thing—now costs a cool £28,000.
Some of them do work hard. We have lots of examples of hard-working peers who turn up diligently, day after day, to put in the work, but all too many of them do practically nothing for the money they are given by the taxpayer. I do not want to pick on my Scottish peer colleagues, but I had a cursory glance at the activity list of some of them who notionally, I believe, look after Scottish interests in the House of Lords. Again, although some are diligent, hard-working individuals, all too many do practically nothing for this taxpayer largesse.
Mark Field
In this debate, it is important that we look beyond House of Lords composition. The hon. Gentleman refers to Scottish interests being looked after by Scottish peers, but that is not their purpose. They do not have a constituency interest; they are there to scrutinise legislation. Will he go into a little detail about some of the worthy work done by a significant number of peers—perhaps not all 800 or so, but certainly several hundred of them—who play that important role even though they have no representative interests?
Pete Wishart
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I beg for patience once again, because I am trying to paint some background on the activities of the House of Lords and the nature of its Chamber. I do want to come on to that point, but it is important that the taxpayers of the country understand the type of service that they get for the £100 million paid annually to sustain these people. Some of them work hard, as he said, but some do next to nothing.
It is right and proper that we should look at these people, because we cannot get rid of them or do anything about them. They are not accountable to any constituency. Just as the hon. Gentleman and I, as parliamentarians, are scrutinised, it is right that we should look at the activities of our colleagues and friends in the House of Lords to assess whether we get value for money.
That brings me back to the Scottish peers. They do not represent any constituency, but when Scottish colleagues and I turn up to events—I see that the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) is here—we always see Scottish Lords in attendance, and again and again they tell us that our interests are looked after in the House of Lords on that basis. However, what we find is that Baroness Adams of Craigielea has claimed an eye-watering £50,000 but spoken in only two debates and never asked a written question since entering the Lords in 2005. Lord Kirkham has cost us £49,239, but spoken in no debates and asked no written questions. Further down the list, there is our noble friend Lord Elder who has cost us £50,000, spoken in two debates and asked no questions. He did, though, as a good public servant, serve on the refreshments committee between 2008 and 2013.
That brings me to the impeccable, cultured tastes of their lordships. In the past four years, they have got through some 17,000 bottles of fine champagne, which cost more than £260,000.
Pete Wishart
I am not a unicameralist, believe it or not; a nation as complex and large as the United Kingdom needs a functioning supervisory Chamber. I will come on to suggest—I hope the hon. Gentleman bears with me—how we might make progress. This debate is about House of Lords reform, which I promise him I will come to.
What is unacceptable, however, and what the British people should put up with no longer, is that circus down in the other place, with the ridiculous spectacle of lords, ladies, deference, forelock-tugging and the rest of it. We need a properly equipped legislature designed for the 21st century—not one designed for the middle ages, something out of the 14th century. I will come to that and to the clear principles that I wish to establish.
Pete Wishart
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman one last time; I have been generous to him. I want to hear his speech.
Mark Field
The hon. Gentleman has been extremely generous. He referred to the anachronistic election procedure for hereditary peers, but does he not recognise that that whole mechanism was put in place to ensure that the piecemeal reforms of 1999 were not the end of the matter? The sort of reforms that he and I would both support are perhaps more wholesale, but they require having the anachronistic hereditary element. Let us get rid of the entirety of what we have at the moment—sweep the whole thing away—but without the anachronism, there would probably be a reluctance to do the sort of radical reform that he and I would support.
Pete Wishart
As a result of the House of Lords Act 1999, the vast majority of the hereditaries were removed, but we are still left with 86 or so, which has always been considered unfinished business. Action has been a long time coming; they are still there—we still have people who have a role in our democracy due to birthright. That is unacceptable. We are all democrats in this House. We cannot allow people to have a role in our democracy because they are the first son of their family.
We might laugh, and it is easy to poke fun at an institution that is so singularly absurd and bizarre, but there is a sinister role in the activities of the House of Lords. It is sinister and open to abuse because it is an appointed Chamber. We do not bother with the whole exercise of letting the public decide and construct the Chamber down the road; instead, we leave it up to politicians—and the temptation for politicians is to stuff it full of their friends, cronies and placemen.
If we need an elderly Member of Parliament to move on for a dynamic, thrusting, new young Member, give the old one a place in the House of Lords. That dynamic, thrusting young Member might lose his seat—I am looking at the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), although he did not take a place in the Lords—so let us cushion the blow and let him continue with his political career by giving him a place in the House of Lords. All too commonly we find that that is how the House of Lords is being used and abused. It is a place for cronies, placemen and time-servers. That is not good enough.
Even that is not what bothers me in particular. The thing that concerns me most, and which should concern everyone in this House, are the donors—people who have a place in our democracy, in the second Chamber of Parliament, whose only qualification seems to be that they are able to give substantial and significant sums to one of the three main establishment Westminster parties. Those are the people who trouble me and who should trouble the rest of the United Kingdom, because lots of people appointed by the political parties seem to have no ability other than to manufacture large sums of cash to sustain those political parties. That is not good enough.
My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who I was hoping could be with us this morning, tested that issue to its legal limit in the previous Parliament. He looked at the situation in the House of Lords, saw connections with the highest levels of the then Labour Government and said, “There is something wrong here.” He then asked the Metropolitan police to investigate, and we had one of the most dramatic political police operations of recent years—the “cash for honours” investigation.
We saw a sitting Prime Minister, Tony Blair, being questioned by police and the arrest of his chief fundraiser and other members of his staff. Charges were dropped—none were brought—not because there was no case to answer or because a clean bill of health was presented, but because no evidence was found. The Crown Prosecution Service felt that it could not proceed with the case. We can all make up our minds about the type of influence that can be exerted on the CPS and the Metropolitan police to drop such a dynamic case. However, the situation was never given a clean bill of health and outstanding issues remain on donations to parties.
All we have to do is to look at the list of appointments to the House of Lords, such as that from last year. Those recently ennobled made a total contribution of £7 million to the three establishment Westminster parties. After cash for honours and something as dramatic as that police investigation, we might have thought that that place would be beyond reproach, that the Lords would have cleaned up their act and that there would be no suggestion, or even a whiff, of any type of abuse or wrongdoing. Not a bit of it! It would seem that they cannot change those ermine spots. Since then, we have had peers banged up in jail for abuse of expenses, cash for influence, cash for amendments and even some cash for honours.
The three biggest donors to the Liberal party—there are no Liberals here, so I am sorry if I am picking on them, Mr Howarth—[Interruption.] Sorry, the Deputy Leader of the House is here. This is something he might to pick up on. The three biggest donors to the Liberals, who just so happen to provide two fifths of the party’s donations, were given peerages by the Deputy Prime Minister. That forced a peer who has now departed, Lord Oakeshott, to concede that cash for honours was still very much alive and that, in his own words,
“my efforts to expose and end cash for peerages in all parties, including our own, and help get the Lords elected have failed.”
The House of Lords, because of its nature, because it is an appointed body and because it does not bother to go through the whole process of elections to be accountable to constituencies is rife with such abuse and activity. The British public deserve better. They deserve a scrutinising Chamber that is beyond reproach, that is democratically decided and that they can get rid of if they are unhappy with its activities.
Our political institutions have never been held in such contempt by the British public. We see that day in, day out. Trust and confidence in the Westminster establishment, the Westminster elite who run this place, has never been lower and that establishment has never been held in such low esteem by the British public. I suggest that when the public observe an undemocratic, ermine-ridden House like the one down the road, it compounds their strong sense of alienation from the whole process of Government.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart)—if he does not mind my calling him that, and if it is not too deferential for his standards—will realise all too well that, as a Conservative, my views on House of Lords matters are not particularly orthodox. In fact, even before his time in the House, I was the only Conservative to support the notion of a unicameral system—certainly unicameral compared with the appalling state of our current House of Lords. To be honest, as a Conservative, I have no problem with a little forelock- tugging. I do not mind having dukes, earls, marquises, barons and the like. I just do not want them having any place in the legislature. They can call themselves whatever they like, but the notion that they are able to vote through laws seems as anachronistic as he pointed out.
In discussing House of Lords reform, there is a great opportunity for us to make the link with something I had thought the hon. Gentleman would raise: English votes for English laws, and the disjointed devolution we currently have in the United Kingdom. I shall touch on that in my speech. I broadly share his view that the time has come for comprehensive constitutional change in the United Kingdom. If it were to be carried out precisely and without partisan party political consideration, I believe we would be capable of producing a solution that will benefit Britain for decades to come.
My instinctive and immediate proposal would be for the creation of a new federal Parliament. It would be an elegant solution designed to resolve effectively the four main domestic constitutional uncertainties of the United Kingdom, which have plagued the political arena during the past three decades and perhaps will continue to do so in the years to come. With a federal UK Parliament and four elected national Parliaments, we could maintain the monarchy, strengthen the Union, and resolve the questions raised by the disgracefully unreformed House of Lords, which we rightly debate today. I would also wish to give independent and equal Parliaments to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Like the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, I am a democrat. Since my maiden speech in the House some 14 years ago, I have supported a fully elected House of Lords. The case for the preservation of the so-called “ancient traditions” of the upper House—we heard much on that, even from younger colleagues of mine in the Conservative party, when the House debated the issue two years ago—was conclusively lost in 1999. Once the vast bulk of the hereditaries—all bar 92—were removed, so too should all appointed Members have followed. Instead, as has been pointed out, we have a ludicrously bloated House of Lords. I am afraid that the Lord Winstons of the House, who are often prayed in aid of the House of Lords, are, with their great broad-based experience, assuredly the exception rather than the rule.
Over the past 15 years, the ranks of the House of Lords have been swelled by hundreds of party hacks and large-scale political donors, along with legislators of very dubious quality who are often given the nod on politically correct grounds. Indeed, I remain staggered at the sheer gutlessness of this place, the House of Commons, as we waved through the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. That legislation was promoted by the Deputy Prime Minister, who heralded the fatuous-to-the-point-of-being-disingenuous saving to the public purse of £10 million a year, which was ironic, given how the Liberal Democrats have not only stuffed the House of Lords full of their own placemen but swelled the ranks of special advisers to untold numbers, both of which actions are entirely counter to the idea of making the cost of politics cheaper.
Mark Lazarowicz
It appears that we all agree—or at least those of us present in the Chamber—on the need for democratic reform of the House of Lords. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we did not all support the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011—it was opposed by the Opposition.
On change in the House of Lords, although I understand the attraction of a radical transformation and move towards a federal Parliament, is there not a danger that we end up spending so many decades trying to get the correct solution that nothing ever happens? Is there a case for moving to an elected House of Lords now, and then moving on to further changes? Otherwise, nothing will happen, not only in our lifetimes but in the lifetimes of people yet unborn.
Mark Field
There is a danger of that. In many ways, much as I disapprove of what happened in 1999, from the point of view of the Blair Administration, they did the right thing in taking the view that they should partly sort out the hereditary issue. Of course, the risk of any reform is that a little flurry of it is followed by decades of nothing else being done—historically, that is what has happened with the upper House—with those who wanted some reform saying, “Well, listen, we’ve been able to achieve something.”
It is depressing that the House of Lords has become ever more a creature of the Executive, while House of Lords reform has ground to a halt. The truth behind what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said is that it is down to the numbers game. The Whips can get business through the House of Commons, so we have the utter discourtesy of Government amendments being tabled in the House of Lords simply because it is known that the legislation will not get through without amendments, which are rubber-stamped when it comes back to the Commons. Instinctively, that feels wrong. Ultimately, it is in our hands in the House of Commons. We are now only 16 or 17 weeks away from a general election, and if the result is indeterminate, we parliamentarians will have the opportunity to stand up, have our say and make a difference, particularly if we are in the realms of a minority Government.
I must confess that, although I was happy to support the underlying principle of electing the House of Lords on Second Reading and in the programme motion of the House of Lords Reform Bill, I believed ultimately that, in many of its particulars, it was a shoddy, poorly drafted piece of legislation. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) said, if we try to work towards perfection, we will achieve very little. That is a great shame, because in many ways the British constitution has hitherto been one of the great success stories of modern politics. It has kept the country together—up to and beyond 18 September last year—united under a common Crown and common Parliament for more than 300 years. Not for us the coups, revolutions and counter-revolutions that have plagued much of the European continent over that period. So successful has the British constitution been that we Britons have often stopped thinking about it.
Until 15 or so years ago, no one lost much time worrying about constitutional niceties. We knew instinctively that, messy as it was, the British constitution worked well and worked for the whole of the British isles. The Blair Administration changed everything. They part-reformed the House of Lords by removing the independent hereditary element, but successive Governments since have created literally hundreds of new life peers. In response to the demand of the people of Scotland and Wales—a demand that I acknowledge the Conservatives were perhaps too slow to understand, and certainly to accept—devolved Parliaments and Assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were created. It requires little cynicism to see that many of those changes were designed for Labour’s political advantage, and that they have not necessarily been properly carried through elsewhere. That has created many problems, especially in England, the neglected land in all those constitutional changes. England is a nation proud and undivided, but many of its people increasingly demand equal treatment with the other nations of the UK. Since last September’s Scottish referendum—lost, in case there is a doubt about it, by 10.6%—some Tory strategists feel that the time is ripe to play the English card.
There is a deep and increasing disquiet among many in England at the effects of devolution, and the most serious problems are the imbalances left by the somewhat partisan settlement of the late 1990s. Those are easily stated. MPs from Edinburgh and Cardiff can vote on health and education policies that affect my constituents and Manchester constituents, and those of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), but not on health and education policies affecting their own constituents—but why? It does not seem just. Under the Barnett formula, residents of Edinburgh had £1,300 more spent on their public services last year than my constituents did. Again, that seems less than equitable. There was a disgraceful situation before Christmas in the Northern Ireland Assembly when the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Fein worked together to put a gun to the head of the British Government, to try to ensure there would be more money on the basis that they wanted a Barnett formula for Northern Ireland. If there is an indeterminate general election result, we may go down that route, with a bidding war on similar grounds in May and June.
Mr Gregory Campbell
The hon. Gentleman said political parties had put a gun to the head of the British Government. I understand his use of the phrase, but while he might well say that about Sinn Fein, the Democratic Unionists were applying pressure.
Mark Field
I am sorry—the hon. Gentleman will recognise that I did not mean that literally. I recognise that, within the context of Northern Ireland and Ulster politics, it might be seen as a loaded phrase. He is aware of what I was getting at. There was a sense that a lot of political pressure was being brought to bear by the political Assembly of one of the parts of the United Kingdom that has had a full constitutional change, which would have affected my constituents to a large extent.
There are great dangers for the Conservatives in promoting the prospect of English votes for English laws. The UK constitution is full of anomalies. Attacking Scottish MPs in that way comes across as partisan and negative. Our mission should be to maintain and strengthen the Union. It is all too easy for a negative-sounding solution to the West Lothian question to be portrayed by our opponents—
Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)
Order. I am listening carefully and with interest to the hon. Gentleman’s speech. The title of the debate is House of Lords reform, and he is talking about wider constitutional questions and issues. Perhaps he could relate them back to the reform of the House of Lords. I am sure he would be happy to stay in order.
Mark Field
That is very kind, Mr Howarth. I very much accept that. The point I was trying to make was that we need to look at House of Lords reform in the context of many of the other constitutional reforms that would be at the top of the in-tray for a Government, because of the unbalanced constitutional situation. It seems to me that the English, and indeed the British as a whole, like and respect the concept of fair play, and there is a groundswell of unease about the somewhat one-sided constitutional deal, which is linked to reform of the House of Lords. As an MP for a seat in London, the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, I think that the Conservative party should offer all the British people together, whether English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish, a new settlement that is demonstrably equitable for everyone. As I have said, that links to the question of the House of Lords.
Since the expulsion of the great bulk of the hereditary peers some 16 years ago, I have in principle favoured the option of a wholly or largely elected House of Lords. I recognise that such an outcome is unlikely to be within the realms of practical politics soon, because the strongest opposition to an elected House of Lords comes from existing life peers from across the political spectrum. Their support for any reform will be essential if we are to avoid the constitutional deadlock that we have been beset by in the past. In addition, even if the principle of election were established, there would remain the question of the timing and process. Would it be first past the post, or proportional representation, a system that other hon. Members have supported? Would there be fixed or variable terms? The list of practical difficulties would be almost endless.
The solution I propose is the creation of an entirely new federal Parliament, with four full national Parliaments in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with all the existing powers of the House of Commons, and over them a federal United Kingdom Parliament, which would debate defence and foreign affairs, make treaties and administer a broader cohesion fund for the poorer parts of the UK and broader strategic economic issues. There would be no need for extra politicians, because the national Parliaments would send representatives to the UK Parliament, which would meet in the old House of Lords Chamber, perhaps once or twice a week. That would mean abolishing the House of Lords, and moving to a unicameral system. That would work pretty well. It has not proved a problem in Edinburgh or Cardiff in the past eight years.
The proposal would cut the Gordian knot of House of Lords reform and provide an equitable structure that respected national differences, while strengthening our ties as a nation of equals. It would remove the growing sense of disgruntlement in England at the perception that the Scots can play the system to benefit financially from the devolution settlement that came into play 15 years ago. It would also save the cost of the House of Lords and the Scotland and Wales Offices and reduce the total number of politicians. It is perhaps a radical and bold solution for a Conservative MP to suggest, but I believe it will be the only way to balance the British constitution, which has served us so well for so long. It would say no to partisan changes and offer the British people a fairer alternative if my party were to hold power after the next election.
The debate is important and will continue. It is easy to be overly negative about the House of Lords. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire comes from a somewhat different political tradition, which means that, for him, the issue has a class war aspect. Even as a Conservative, when I watch the Queen’s Speech, the ermine and the pomp and ceremony of the House of Lords do not fill me with great joy.
Although I believe we should adopt a unicameral system and abolish the House of Lords, I should point out that a significant number of Lords make a big contribution. The composition of the House, particularly recently, has not been terribly satisfactory, but many peers have great expertise and are diligent in their work. They probably earn considerably less in the hours they spend on House of Lords business than they do in their other activities. We should recognise that, but like the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, I feel the time is ripe for constitutional change, to put things on a fair footing, equitable for all our people. I very much want to link House of Lords reform to general devolution reform, which is at the forefront of the Government’s mind.
Mark Durkan
I fully accept what the hon. Gentleman says; of course, that “spat”, as he calls it, related to the parallel or concurrent legislation that had been produced about the voting system and constituencies. That legislation turned out to be a case of premature miscalculation on the part of the Liberal Democrats. They wanted a Second Reading debate by the time of their first party conference in government and they wanted the Bill passed by the time of their second such conference—but, of course, the linked issues in and around Lords reform ended up meeting difficulty. Then, because of some other issues to do with the constituency changes, it was deemed easier to pull the House of Lords Reform Bill in a sort of fit of pique or a broad political huff than it was properly to pursue Lords reform, which we all say we support.
As you know, Mr Howarth, I come to this debate as a constitutional Irish nationalist. I have already said that I believe in having a second Chamber in the context of the Irish constitution. One factor that I have always believed the Seanad Eireann was able to accommodate, although it was not allowed to accommodate it as well as it should have done, is the position and the outlook of those members of the Irish nation who do not live within the 26 counties of the Irish Republic, not least those in Northern Ireland. Similarly, in the context of considering proposals about how to take forward a debate on a united Ireland after the Good Friday agreement—with its principles and promises, as ratified in a solemn act of articulated self-determination by the Irish people, north and south—my party has made it clear that in the event of a referendum in Northern Ireland ever bringing about a united Ireland, we would equally see the case for a reformed second Chamber here in the British Parliament accommodating and representing people from Northern Ireland who believed that they were part of the body politic of the British nation and who wanted to continue to be identified here as well. So, if the test in politics is, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” we meet that test. That is one of the reasons why, as Irish nationalists, we are interested in this issue.
I am not particularly obsessed with the feng shui of arranging the various bits of furniture of the British constitution, even though I find myself shanghaied as a member of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee into considering it. However, as an Irish nationalist with my own outlook and hopes, I have a legitimate and valid interest in House of Lords reform in terms of a future role for a reformed second Chamber here in Parliament.
As I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire one of the things that frustrates me as a Member of the House of Commons is the fact that whenever voting reform of the House of Commons is proposed, time and again, many hon. Members—from all parties—step up to say that they are opposed to particular types of voting reform and that they are also opposed to electing a House of Lords, because they feel that such an elected second Chamber would somehow undermine the elected authority of the House of Commons.
Yet, at the same time, those Members are consistently prepared to engage in a dereliction of the legislative duty of the House of Commons by constantly deferring to the House of Lords when it comes to reforms. In this Parliament, that might be related to possible whipping challenges and the difficulties of getting some amendments through or allowing them through at the hands of the rebels and to saying, “Well, it’s easier if we come up with a recooked version of those amendments in the House of Lords.”
The situation was the same in the last Parliament. Then, although the Labour Government did not face those difficulties, again and again, it seemed to be the automatic convention that if they accepted that the case for an amendment had been made in the Commons, the due place for it to be made was not the Commons itself but the Lords.
Significantly, among the few amendments that were actually made to Government Bills in the Commons in the last Parliament were amendments to the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009. The right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) managed to get an amendment made by a majority of just three votes. It was also in the context of the 2009 Act that I got an amendment directly accepted by the Government for the only time. The amendment inserted a reference to Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenue into the Bill. Any reference to HMRC had been completely omitted before that, even though we could all consider the tax dimensions of the expenses scandal. The Government accepted the principle of one amendment but said that they would work up a better version of it in the Lords. However, they fully accepted another amendment.
That situation is a rarity, and it is a scandal that in an elected legislative Chamber, where our main job is meant to be to act as legislators and to provide due elective consideration, we are so derelict in our duty in relation to making amendments. That is why the House of Lords is credited with making an exaggerated number of amendments and why its status as a revising Chamber is inflated by comparison with the dereliction of duty in the Commons.
Changing that situation would lead to a challenge to the Whips system and, indeed, to Members of the Commons themselves. Let us remember that although it is easy to caricature Members of the House of Lords in the way that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire did in introducing this debate, reform of the House of Lords would lead to a significant change in the role and work load of the Commons Chamber, too, and of individual MPs. Whether or not we end up with any significant mechanism for recall or any other such reform, the fact is that we—as individual Members of that primary elected Chamber—will need to take responsibility. It would not take a conspiracy theorist to suggest that some of the reluctance about House of Lords reform that exists could be because people are not prepared to adjust to the changes and the new requirements that would then extend to them in the elected Chamber.
Mark Field
The hon. Gentleman has demolished the argument that is made—sadly, by some of my colleagues on the Conservative Benches—about this idea of the primacy of the House of Commons somehow being threatened by Lords reform. May I also say that, like me, the Minister who is here today is a London MP? We proudly represent our own constituencies, but of course London also has eight or nine Members of the European Parliament, an elected Mayor, members of the Greater London Assembly and 11 top-up members of the GLA, and indeed there are also about 30 councillors in our patch. However, because the responsibilities of all those offices are well-defined, there is no sense of our being undermined by them, and the same would apply to the Commons and the Lords if the House of Lords was to continue.
Mark Durkan
I fully accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. However, in circumstances where there is a moving agenda in relation to devolution, including demands for different forms of downloadable devolution for England, whether in the metropolitan cities or in other local government conglomerations, I recognise that there needs to be some sort of parliamentary or representative charter that makes it easier for the voter to understand which of the different elected offices is responsible for which issue. At times, there is quite a blur, and in the context of Northern Ireland, there ends up being confusion about the swinging doors between devolution and the Westminster Parliament.
My final point relates to appointments to the House of Lords. My party has never made such an appointment; we have always refused to do so, and that has included people who have served honourably in this House, such as John Hume and Seamus Mallon. When Tony Blair was Prime Minister, he and his advisers and coterie made strong suggestions to me that we should appoint people to the House of Lords. They were willing to appoint people and embarrassed by the fact that they were appointing more and more Unionists to the House of Lords and nobody was there to represent the dimensions and outlook of the Social Democratic and Labour party.
I pointed out why we do not appoint people to the House of Lords: we do not believe, as nationalists, that we are going to put the ermine into self-determination by taking seats in the House of Lords. I was told, “These would be working peers. Don’t see it as part of the honours system; they would be working peers,” and I suggested, “Well, if you want someone who would reflect an SDLP perspective, would be in strong sympathy with them and would be a working peer, you could always appoint somebody like Kevin McNamara, but he would probably be too much of a working peer for your taste,” to which I got a firm nod and a fair smile.
When I was leader of my party, I was approached with offers of money to nominate people to the House of Lords. That happened on more than one occasion. At one point, I was approached—not by the person who wanted to be appointed, but by somebody else who seemed to speaking on their behalf and certainly in that person’s interest—with an offer of £50,000 to change my position and the party’s position on the House of Lords. Of course, I refused, but I noted with interest that that person subsequently found a way on to the Benches of the House of Lords. I do not know whether any money changed hands or anything else. I have no evidence of that; I can simply give witness. That, again, is what adds to my sense of scandal over the fact that we have failed to deliver proper House of Lords reform, but I recognise that we do not have the luxury of simply pointing the finger at the inadequacies of the House of Lords. The House of Commons must bear some responsibility and would be significantly challenged by reform.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I welcome the opportunity to have this debate in Westminster Hall and I thank the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) for giving us this chance. We have had a good debate on House of Lords reform. Although there is a need for fundamental change—I will reaffirm Labour’s support for fundamental change—I think all hon. Members acknowledge the very hard work of many Members of the other place in scrutinising and seeking to improve legislation.
I will start by addressing what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire set out as his principles for reform, because he set them out very well. They were, first, that the second Chamber should be democratic; secondly, that it should be smaller than it is now, but also smaller than the House of Commons; and, thirdly, that there should be a clear definition of the second Chamber’s role as scrutinising and improving legislation. That is very important. I have never accepted the argument that the primacy of the House of Commons is somehow automatically challenged by having a more legitimate and democratic second Chamber. Definition is a way of addressing that problem. As an aside, alongside seeking to make changes in the House of Lords, we need to recognise that the House of Commons needs to get its act together when it comes to the scrutiny and improvement of legislation. The Government need to get their act together by presenting to the House of Commons legislation that does not require, when it goes to the other place, the level of amendment that we have seen both in this Parliament and under the Labour Government.
Fourthly, as the hon. Gentleman said, we need to get shot of the deference. That, crucially, reminds us of the importance of completing the work to remove the remaining hereditary peers. I would add a fifth principle, which the hon. Gentleman accepted in his speech and which most hon. Members, apart from the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), have acknowledged, which is that there should be a second Chamber. Some hon. Members, including in my party, favour a unicameral solution. It is very important that we have checks and balances in our system; having a second Chamber that can provide scrutiny and improvement of legislation is very important.
This is not a new issue. It has been around for more than 100 years, as has been acknowledged, and it has been debated, certainly during the two stints that I have had in this place, at great length. When I was elected in 1997, the Labour party ran on a programme of very dramatic constitutional change, as the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster said, and I am very proud of what we did on devolution, freedom of information and the Human Rights Act 1998. We started the job of House of Lords reform with the 1999 legislation, and it is interesting to look at the experience of 1999 through to now, because it demonstrates some of the pitfalls of trying to reform the House of Lords.
The original legislation in 1999 was to remove all the hereditary peers, and then in effect a deal was done between the then Government and the Conservatives in the House of Lords—not the Conservatives in the House of Commons—to retain 92 hereditary peers. In one way, it was a dramatic reform, because the number of hereditary peers was reduced very significantly, but even so a compromise was accepted that the 92 would remain. As the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said, we have the absurdity of the only elected Members of the other place being the hereditary peers who are elected in the event of an hereditary peer leaving the other place through either death or retirement.
The aim was always to have a second stage. I served for a year, between 2001 and 2002, as Deputy Leader of the House of Commons. Robin Cook was the Leader of the House and was determined to see fundamental reform, both in modernising the House of Commons and in reforming the House of Lords. Colleagues may recall that we had a series of votes on reform of the other place. I cannot remember the exact order, but we voted on its being 100% elected, 0% elected, 80% elected, 20% elected—right the way through—and every single proposal was defeated. That reminds us that these things are not easy, that there is a range of views, and that we sometimes allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Personally, I voted for a 100% elected Chamber, but I also voted for one that was 80% elected. Some were purists and were not prepared to vote for anything less than 100% elected.
We have had further votes since in which there has been a clear majority in the House of Commons for an elected second Chamber. Under the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), the House of Commons voted for both 100% and 80% elected. As we have been reminded, the Bill in this Parliament received a very clear majority on Second Reading. We can therefore say that the will of the House of Commons is for a democratic second Chamber. The principles set out today are absolutely the right ones.
How do we take things from here? It is right to remind ourselves that a general election is coming up and there is an opportunity in manifestos for commitments to be made. It is very important to make those commitments, but we need to learn the lessons from past failings. There are two lessons. First, as is the case with any constitutional reform, the greater cross-party consensus we can forge, the better. People in all political parties will have different views, so the more cross-party consensus, the better. Secondly—I say this as a long-standing reformer—we have not tended to engage citizens. The more we can engage citizens in all parts of the country in proposals for reform, the better.
The Labour party’s position is that we want a democratic second Chamber. We have talked about forging a senate of the nations and regions that can be truly representative. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire rightly reminded us of the patronage in the appointments system and of the injustice of hereditary peerages. The third element that is worth emphasising is that there is no geographic representation in the other place. Its Members are heavily drawn from people who are from London and the south-east of England—just over half of peers are from London or the south-east of England. The region that I now represent in Parliament, the north-west, has just 6% of those who are in the other place.
Mark Field
I speak as a London Member and someone who has spent all his adult life in London. It is probably fair to say that many but not all of those—I accept that there is an imbalance—who are notionally from London and the south-east originated in other parts of the United Kingdom, but have spent much of their professional career in London and the south-east. That slightly skews the figures, but the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point.
Stephen Twigg
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. The opportunity of a democratic second Chamber is clearly to have one that has fair and proportional representation from all parts of the country. Obviously, that would include London, but also Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the regions of England.
Let me finish by saying something about how best we can take this forward. Clearly, there are long-standing plans for reform, which were reflected in the legislation presented earlier in this Parliament, but there is a broader set of challenges. After the Scottish referendum, there are questions about England, and questions about devolution to city regions, counties and local communities. There is sense in looking at these issues in the round, which is why a number of the democracy and citizens organisations have argued for some time that we should have a UK constitutional convention to address them. Labour and other parties support that. The broader the support we can build for it, the better. It needs to happen quickly. We need to start the work now. I welcome the discussions that are already happening, but the right way to reform Parliament, including reforms relating to legislation that affects only England or England and Wales, and to reform the second Chamber, is through a constitutional convention that is led by citizens, that has a majority of members of the public on it, that reports back quickly after deliberation and whose proposals are then considered in this place. If we can get such a constitutional convention set up this year, there is an opportunity to get this right and get a blueprint that creates a truly democratic second Chamber—a senate of the nations and regions—and we can finally deal with an issue that has been in contention for well over a century.
To finish where I started, I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire has given us the opportunity this morning to address this very important issue. We must not allow it to fall off the political agenda.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) on securing this debate on a familiar but none the less very important subject.
The Government believe that the second Chamber should be more representative of the British people. In a modern democracy, it is important that those who pass legislation should be chosen by those to whom it applies. As hon. Members know, in 2012 the Government introduced the House of Lords Reform Bill, in line with commitments in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat 2010 election manifestos and the coalition’s programme for government. That Bill would have made provision for a reformed House of 450 Members, 80% of whom would have been elected and 20% appointed by an independent statutory appointments commission, plus ministerial Members and 12 Church of England bishops.
The proposal was a compromise. Personally, I would have preferred a 100% elected Chamber, but that is not the point that we reached. The House voted by a majority of 338 for that Bill to receive a Second Reading—a clear endorsement of the principle of reforming the House of Lords. However, as Members will recall, the Bill had to be withdrawn following the lack of agreement over a programme motion that might have led to an unacceptable amount of time being devoted to debate on the changes.
More recently, some minor changes have been made to the House of Lords as a result of the Bill promoted by Lord Steel, which became the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 and made three changes to the terms of membership of the House of Lords. First, Members of the House of Lords can now formally and permanently retire; previously, a peer could effectively retire only by applying for leave of absence. Secondly, a peer who receives a custodial sentence of more than 12 months will now automatically cease to be a Member of the House of Lords, in line with the provision for Members of the House of Commons. Finally, a peer who does not attend during a Session will now cease to be a Member of the House of Lords.
Those were sensible housekeeping provisions on which there was a cross-party consensus, which is why it was possible to introduce them. Clearly, however, they are not a substitute for real and genuine reform of the Lords. The Government remain committed to the principle of comprehensive and democratic reform of the House of Lords even though it has not been possible to bring forward legislation on the matter during this Parliament.
Mark Field
I, too, deeply regret the lack of progress. I was among the majority of 338 on Second Reading of the 2012 reform Bill. Given that such reform is an ongoing commitment of the coalition Government, can the Minister explain why the Government have continued to appoint more Members of the House of Lords on the old basis since that defeat? Surely a strong signal of the Government’s intention would have been to put an absolute embargo on any further appointments to the House of Lords. Why has that not happened?
Tom Brake
That is not a decision that the Government took. It has not been possible to undertake the substantial reform that we wanted, so the Government have continued to appoint peers to ensure that the balance of peers and the parties that they represent is, broadly speaking, representative of that in the House of Commons.
I would like to pick up on some points that hon. Members have made. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire will be reassured to hear that he can call the other place the House of Lords. That is a minor change towards less deference, or at least greater clarity.
I get frustrated when hon. Members refer, as the hon. Gentleman did, to other major parties as “establishment” parties. The Scottish National party, which he represents, is very much an establishment party in Scotland; I am sure that some of his criticisms of the major parties here could be turned around and directed at him and his party in Scotland. I thank him for highlighting in his tweets what he was going to say in today’s debate. That gave us advance notice. Readers of Hansard will be able to judge for themselves whether the debate has been a good one, as he predicted it would be.
The hon. Gentleman said that only one peer had chosen to retire, but my understanding is that under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, five have chosen to retire. Before that, three peers retired under a voluntary retirement system. Earlier still—I am sure we agree that we would not particularly want to trumpet this—five peers retired because of the rules that required those who were not domiciled in the UK for tax purposes to retire. There have been some genuine retirements in addition to the one that he mentioned.
The hon. Gentleman referred, understandably, to the question of donors who have subsequently become peers. To return to my comment about his party being an establishment party, I am sure that the same degree of scrutiny is applied, for instance, to the relationship between the leader of the SNP and Brian Souter, and to the donations that the party receives through that route. Indeed, I hope that the relationship, and the two dozen meetings that took place, between Alex Salmond and Rupert Murdoch received the same degree of scrutiny as do donors here.
I commend the hon. Gentleman on his work for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy—something that I have done in the past—which is an essential organisation that provides support to parties outside the UK. I agree that it is difficult for him as a trustee, as it was for me, to explain to other countries around the world why we have the House of Lords. I understand the difficult position in which that puts him.
I agree with all the key principles that the hon. Gentleman set out. However, I understood him to say that he did not want the House of Lords to initiate any legislation. If that is his position, I hope that he has considered the fact that such a system would present some significant logistical issues for the House of Commons legislative programme. If all legislation was required to start in the House of Commons, either there would have to be much less legislation or Members of Parliament would have to work much longer on the legislative programme and spend a lot less time in their constituencies.
We all agree with the hon. Gentleman that we want a modern, democratic Chamber. Slightly lacking in his speech was the bit in between—the route map that will take us from our concerns about the present system to the creation of a modern, democratic Chamber. That is the difficulty that we all face. The solution proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) was a federal UK Parliament with four national Parliaments. That has the advantage of being a straightforward solution, but there are significant risks associated with it. For instance, the Scottish Government has led to more centralisation in Scotland, and I am concerned that the simple solution of an English Parliament might suck powers upwards into such a Parliament, which is the exact opposite of what I want to achieve.
Deregulation Bill
Mark Field Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I wish to speak briefly on this matter. I have a lot of sympathy with the Opposition’s views, and the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) is right: we have a lot to be proud of. I am always wary of using the phrase, “It is the envy of the world”, but we have a superb television service and, largely, the British Broadcasting Corporation is responsible for that.
There are those on the Government Benches—I have some sympathy with some of my, as the hon. Lady would put it, “right-wing colleagues”—who worry about the political bias of the BBC. Even its former director-general, Mr Mark Thompson, has referred to that. None the less, I do not think any of us can deny that the BBC does a very good public service with its broadcasting, and it is one that is recognised throughout the world. My concern is this: we are living in a fast-changing world and the notion that the BBC’s licence fee can remain in aspic as the only model of funding is one that would be dangerous for the BBC, as well as for all of us, necessarily to hold close to our hearts.
Criminalisation is also something that I want to speak about briefly. When my late mother died, she was living alone. She had been widowed for some years, and she died in September 2010. I took on the responsibility for looking after her affairs in the home in which she had lived prior to it being sold, which took place some months later. I was appalled by the experience that I had, which I am sure is one shared by many hundreds of thousands of our fellow countrymen in a similar position. Literally on a fortnightly basis, we got threatening letters from the BBC’s licensing department, saying that we were committing a criminal offence by not having a licence. There is a sense, I am afraid, in which the BBC regards every single home as being fair game, whether anyone is living there or, indeed, using a television set. It certainly was not terribly good public relations, not just for me personally, but, I suspect, for many other people who go through that particular rigmarole. There is a sense that the BBC feels it has the right to claim, almost with menaces, moneys, when the particular circumstances of my mother having passed away made it even more upsetting to get one letter after another in this way.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes an important point by talking about his mother’s circumstances. My constituents, too, have had similar experiences with the TV licence and the point they are trying to make is that these approaches by the BBC are overly aggressive. That has helped the push towards the introduction of the amendments.
Mark Field
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. For those of us who are broadly supportive of the BBC and its values, it is very upsetting to see that aggressive approach, particularly in circumstances such as the ones that I have pointed out, which affect, as I said, many tens of thousands of our fellow countrymen on a day-to-day basis. The notion is put across that somehow, if we lose the money, we will not be able to have CBeebies and BBC4, but again, there has to be a sense of prioritisation in the BBC, which has a very privileged position with its money—some £2.5 billion a year—that it is able to rely on in order to make the excellent programmes to which we have all referred.
I hope that we will have a sensible debate—in fairness to the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, she has presented some sensible proposals—on how our British Broadcasting Corporation will be funded. The only warning sign is that we are increasingly living in a world of pay-per-view and a proliferation of channels. Like me, the hon. Lady grew up at a time when, until 1982, there were only three channels. A fourth channel then emerged, and suddenly we had a plethora of channels that we can rely on. As a result, if the BBC is to play as important a part in public life in the decades to come, it must be wise to the fact that there will have to be changes to its funding mechanism, without immediately accusing the House, and others who wish it to survive well into the 21st and future centuries, of being aggressively anti what it does.
I hope that the Solicitor-General will have some proposals regarding what I have said, and particularly that he will ensure that the good will towards the BBC in the hearts of many of our fellow countrymen remains intact. Some of the BBC’s antics are the sorts of things that have allowed people who would otherwise oppose the amendments to hold the views expressed in one or two of them, although, as we see, they will not necessarily be discussed to any great extent.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make a brief contribution. I look forward to an interesting debate, which I expect will take place not just on the Floor of the House but will make up an important part of discussions on the renewal of the charter in 2016 and beyond.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is a delight to support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), and an enormous shame that those who drafted the original clauses are not present to take part in the debate that they began.
Chris Bryant
Absolutely. I am not opposed to the idea of ending present licensing offences per se, although I think there are dangers in that which I will come to in a moment. However, doing it in this order, and in a Deregulation Bill that has nothing to do with broadcasting or licensing, is particularly bizarre. On the whole I dislike Christmas tree legislation, which is what the Bill has become, and these proposals are wholly inappropriate. If we had a broadcasting Bill, I would be happy to see these matters debated in the round and in the context of broadcasting. I think we would have a fuller Chamber—better viewing figures perhaps, and not just BBC executives who are doubtless following every second of this debate.
As we consider current offences and whether they should be swept away, we must bear in mind the fact that broadcasting always tends towards monopoly as that is its fundamental nature. It is very expensive to make a programme, but it is more or less as expensive to show that programme to one person as it is to show it to 5,000, 2 million or 5 million people.
Chris Bryant
If the hon. Gentleman will let me finish this argument, I will give way.
I think it appropriate, especially in markets of the size we have in the United Kingdom, to ensure that a pot of money is available for local, British programming—programmes made in this country that reflect its interests, not just in terms of news and current affairs, but drama, comedy, religion, and all the different genres. That is an essential part of ensuring that monopoly does not always triumph.
The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) referred to the £2.7 billion that the BBC is guaranteed as though that were an enormous amount of money. It is nothing compared with Sky, which has £7 billion a year; and how much programming does it produce that is then exported round the world on behalf of Britain? To what extent does it sell Britain abroad? How much does it reflect the whole of British society? It is difficult enough to get a Sky journalist to travel outside the M25, let alone all the way down to Wales, for heaven’s sake. That is why I believe we must have an alternative in the public sector to the monopoly that will otherwise be set up.
Mark Field
I had hoped to agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about this measure being in a Christmas tree Bill. I agree with him fundamentally that it would be better to have it in a proper broadcasting Bill, but the difficulty is that we focus our minds on the BBC only when the renewal of the charter comes up, which is not necessarily the best time to look at these things in the broadest sense. However, I disagree with what he said about Sky. Ultimately, we are all consumers of Sky. It is the market that decides, and if there were no market for it, Sky would not have £7 billion in its coffers. We have £2.7 billion in the BBC, which I think does a terrific job, given that amount of money, but it is right that the market should prevail to a certain extent.
Chris Bryant
Perhaps what the hon. Gentleman says reflects his constituency, but for the majority of the time that I have been a Member of Parliament, the only way in which my constituents could get BBC 3, BBC 4 or, in most parts of it, BBC 2, let alone Channel 4, was to pay Sky. It had an absolute monopoly on digital television in the south Wales valleys. Because of the mixture of platforms, the geography, the various ways in which, for instance, mansion block flats in London work and all the rest of it, it is important that we have a public service broadcaster with a commitment and a statutory requirement to deliver to every household and provide something for everybody: the 83-year-old who likes listening to Chaucer and Mantovani—if there is a person who likes only that combination—and the 18-year-old who is interested only in the kind of things that are shown on BBC 3.
That is an important commitment and we need that combination, because as somebody once put it to me, if we are to have one 800 lb gorilla in the forest, in the shape of Sky, it is a good idea to have a second 800 lb gorilla in the forest, because that is safer for everybody. The competition we have in the UK between public service broadcasting and the commercial sector is positive. We were wrong in the past to campaign against having ITV and the commercial sector and all the rest. It is right to have that mixture. The two feed off each other, and Sky is now finally learning that it is a good idea to produce programmes of its own.
The licence fee is a phenomenal success for this country. The £2.7 billion that the hon. Gentleman talks of is basically an investment in production, which is why programmes are sold all around the world. We are the only country in Europe that manages to be a net exporter of programming. That might be because of our history, but I think it is also because we have a strong BBC. I also think that the alternatives to the licence fee that are experienced elsewhere in Europe, which many people tout—for instance, Germany has a mixture of a licence fee and advertising, others have a public service broadcasting model based just on advertising, and the Netherlands has a fixed amount of income tax—are more flawed than the licence fee. To paraphrase Churchill, yes, the licence fee may be terrible—for all the reasons that I am sure people can adduce: it is not progressive, it bears down unequally, it affects everybody, whether they are rich or poor, and all the rest of it—but it is better than all the alternatives.
The Solicitor-General
Clearly the regulations need to be carefully considered and proper consultation is needed to ensure that the effect of the measure, which is to give more freedom to individual householders, is respected while giving proper recognition in the policy to the difficulties the hon. Gentleman mentions, which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington also brought to my attention.
Mark Field
I endorse the view stated earlier that a process of consultation began as recently as February on this issue and has not yet come to a close, so it feels a little strange that this measure has been rushed through in this Bill. That is the tenor of the concerns expressed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) as well. Why does the Minister think there is a different regime for London? Why was that put into place some 40 years ago and why is the time suddenly now right for it to be changed?
The Solicitor-General
As I think was said in another part of the country today, London is a super-city: it is an enormous city and it does have unique circumstances. The Government recognise the necessity of working with the London boroughs to design the provision to ensure we achieve the right balance between increasing the freedoms for Londoners and protecting London’s housing supply. We would not want that to be undermined. We are trying to ensure that speculators are not able to buy homes meant for Londoners and rent them permanently as short-term lets.
Caroline Lucas
I have tabled a number of amendments in this group, but given that we are so pressed for time, I will speak to just one of them, new clause 8, which I hope to press to a vote.
I am deeply concerned about the lack of affordable housing, which is yet another indictment of this Government, who have turned their back on “generation rent”. Housing is undoubtedly at the heart of the concerns of my constituents in Brighton. That message comes across clearly from conversations on our city streets, in my surgeries and from the e-mails and letters I receive.
In addition to tackling things such as letting fees, housing standards and security of tenure in the private rented sector, it is absolutely crucial that we ensure an adequate supply of affordable housing. Yet this coalition’s slapdash, ill-thought-out approach to right to buy is undermining this. The Bill, as currently drafted, would reduce the eligibility period for the right to buy from five years to three years. Giving local authority tenants and some housing association tenants the opportunity to buy their home at a discounted price is not a bad thing in itself, but only on the strict condition that it does not jeopardise affordable housing supply, including the ability of housing associations to build new affordable housing.
The new clause would require the Government to produce a plan to replace affordable homes lost in England as a result of right to buy, review the effectiveness of current policy and ask for an assessment to be carried out of changes since 2012 before further policy changes are made. Around 1.8 million households are waiting for a social home, which is an increase of 81% since 1997. The reality of right to buy is about much more than families being able to own their home. Last year, it was revealed that rich landowners are cashing in, buying up multiple ex-council properties and renting them back to people on endless housing waiting lists. In one London borough, as I said earlier, a third of council homes sold in the 1980s are now owned by private landlords, some of whom own dozens of properties.
Far too often, the rich, not the poor, are the real beneficiaries of housing benefit. Currently, only one in every seven homes sold through right to buy has been replaced, and I find it astonishing that the Government are so complacent that they are not even monitoring the number of homes replaced following the preserved right to buy. Housing associations say that, in fact, the number is likely to be even less than one in seven. It is inexcusable that Ministers have not even consulted housing associations, which provide 2.5 million homes to more than 5 million people.
We are a rich country. If we are serious about tackling the housing crisis, we need a major programme of direct capital investment to build sustainable council housing, and the constraints on borrowing faced by local authorities should be lifted, so that councils can better meet demand for new homes. We must not inhibit the ability of housing associations to build more homes. This would ease pressure on the private market and, in turn, help rent levels and housing prices. Instead, we have the appalling situation where we are paying housing benefit to private landlords at extortionate market rates for good houses that once belonged to the taxpayer. It is a scandal.
Today, house prices speak for themselves. In my constituency, the average one-bedroom flat costs nearly six and three-quarter times the median household annual income, and three-bedroom houses cost more than 12 times. That is why I hope that people will support my new clause.
Mark Field
I think I speak on behalf of the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) when I express some concerns about what appears to be the anomalous situation in London with the short-term letting of residential properties. These proposals have caused enormous concern among communities in the heart of our capital.
The Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973 was originally introduced to ensure that London’s permanent housing stock would be protected from strong market pressure to convert homes into visitor accommodation, and was deemed wholly necessary to deal with the acute housing shortage that London was then experiencing. At that time, London had a population of some 7.5 million and declining. Its population now stands at 8.2 million and, as all London MPs know, increases at a breath-taking annual rate. It needs to be recognised that allowing greater flexibility to change use from permanent residential occupation to short-term letting will have significant implications for London’s stock of permanent housing. It may make it impossible for our local authorities to meet their targets for new homes.
My constituents have very good reason to believe that a loosening of the rules governing short lets, as set out in this somewhat ill-thought-through new clause 21, will make it much harder to keep their buildings safe, secure and well maintained. It risks undermining a sense of community that can be all too difficult to build in an essentially transient urban population. In fact, London’s hyper-mobility and hyper-diversity get greater year by year. It will make it far more difficult for local authorities to deal with noise and antisocial behaviour. Above all, it threatens to make central London homes, already traded by many people as some sort of global currency, into little more than assets to be exploited for maximum profit.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
I will be a little briefer than I would have ideally liked, but I am extremely obliged to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak to amendment 2, which stands in my name. It would prevent the Government stopping local authorities specifying a higher standard of energy efficiency in new build properties until after the zero-carbon homes policy came into effect. To be clear, the Bill is intended to prevent local authorities from having autonomy, and my amendment would ensure that local authorities must adhere to as high a standard as possible.
The UK’s housing stock is the least efficient in Europe. As a result, we have some of the worst fuel poverty statistics in Europe—only Estonia does worse than we do at the moment—because our housing stock is so old. A great deal of the discussions that take place here are about the challenge of retrofitting, whether through supplier obligations or things such as the green deal. Surely that puts a premium on us to ensure that the new build standards are as high as possible.
The Labour Government introduced the zero-carbon homes policy, with the intention of implementing it by 2016. It was an excellent policy, with a clear implementation framework that allowed the private sector to produce the plans to deliver it. This Government have successfully undermined that policy. The definition was changed substantially some time ago, and that was further diluted in the Queen’s Speech. I am afraid that I do not have a great deal of faith in this Government’s Department for Communities and Local Government to deliver zero-carbon homes, but even if the Government tried to do so, what would happen between now and 2016?
Many people will take a localist view, to which I am sympathetic. The constituency I represent covers a substantial part of the green belt between Greater Manchester and Derbyshire, and if that green belt comes under pressure from new build, I believe we should be able to argue that the standard should be as high as possible for those homes. However, I appreciate that that would widen the debate too much, and I hope that a focus on preventing clause 30 from coming into effect until zero-carbon homes are in operation will command as much support as possible.
Of course, if the Government are sincere in backing zero-carbon homes, they have nothing to fear from my amendment—it would make no difference to a Government committed to delivering an ambitious zero-carbon homes policy in 2016. However, the issues of sustainability, efficient use of energy, and fuel poverty, as well as public acceptance of new build housing, which affects all of us, are so important that I will, with your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, seek to divide the House on my amendment, as well as appeal to the other place to give the matter the due attention it deserves.
Votes at 16
Mark Field Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Sarah Champion
I apologise for that slip, Mr Bone.
The motion for that debate stated:
“That this House believes that the age of eligibility for voting in all elections and referenda in the United Kingdom should be reduced to 16.”
Incredibly, it won the Commons vote, with 119 Members voting in favour and 46 against, yet the Government have still done nothing to send a signal to young people that their voice and their vote are valued.
A persistent refusal by this Government to permit voting at 16 sends a message to 16 and 17-year-olds that their views on society are not valid. That is not and should not be the case. Our 16 and 17-year-olds will form the next generation of creative thinkers, business leaders, scientists and engineers. We will and do expect them to contribute to our society, both now and in future. Our message to them should be that we expect them to contribute to a society that appreciates them, that welcomes their opinions and that is willing to act to represent their views. If we cannot act to bring that about, it should be no surprise if our young people become alienated from the democratic system.
Already, the political system serves to alienate young people. The average age of an MP is 50, and less than a quarter of MPs are women. We cannot expect young people to engage in politics if it is seen as unfamiliar to and unrepresentative of them. I do not believe that granting votes at 16 is the final or only step needed to engage young people politically, but I believe that it would be a really positive start to the process. We must show young people that we value both their contributions to society and their opinions about how things should be done.
In government, Labour introduced citizenship to the national curriculum. Rather than paring that back, we should be bolstering the teaching of citizenship and politics in schools. Research has shown that if someone votes in the first election after they reach the age of majority, they are more likely to carry on voting; conversely, someone who does not vote in that first election is unlikely ever to vote. As Members of Parliament, we have an important role in structuring a society that teaches young people that using their vote is worthwhile and that their voice is valued as part of society’s decision making.
We know that people are encouraged to vote when it is easiest and most convenient for them—that is the experience from postal voting—so some campaigners have argued that we should consider having polling booths in schools. That would mean that the first time sixth-form and college students voted, they would do so in a supportive and welcoming environment. Surely that can only be a good thing. Such modifications are crucial in opening up our democratic system. If we want to understand why young people do not engage as much as we would hope, we must start by addressing the environment in which they engage. If we cannot get that right, young people’s entire experience of political engagement will start off on the wrong foot.
Some might argue that that role should fall to the young person’s parents, but leaving it to parents alone allows for a much more variable rate of participation by young people, potentially based on the parents’ own view of whether it is important to vote. We should not be looking to establish a system in which young people decide based on their parents’ intentions, but one in which young people are well informed and have enough support to decide for themselves.
After today’s debate, I hope that every MP—not just the ones here in the Chamber—goes to schools and colleges to discuss this issue with young people in their constituency. I hope that young people take the initiative to write to their MP and tell them why it is so important. I was aware of the issue and believed in it, but I did not actively campaign on it until I heard the young people of Rotherham telling me why it was so important to them. As elected Members, we are here to represent our constituents, and it is particularly important that we represent those who do not have a voice of their own. Hearing the passion of so many young people who believe so vehemently is enough to make one realise that allowing voting at 16 is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do because it is inclusive. It is the right thing to do because it recognises the contributions that 16-year-olds make to society.
Mark Field
Apologies; I have just come in, but some of us have other constituency duties. Those who can rely on the Welsh Parliament obviously have far less to do as Members of this House. May I ask the hon. Lady whether inclusiveness applies—[Interruption.]
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
Order. It is normal when there is an intervention that it is addressed to the Member who is speaking. Hon. Members sitting next to her should be quiet.
Mark Field
The hon. Lady refers to inclusiveness. Does that apply to 14-year-olds, or perhaps to 12-year-olds as well?
Mark Field
I had been here for the previous few minutes, which is why I asked whether that particular point about inclusiveness should apply to 14-year-olds and 12-year-olds. Does the hon. Lady not think that as well as having a right to vote, there is also a responsibility that any young adult should have in matters of politics or current affairs, and that therefore we have probably got the balance right and 18 is roughly the right age? Of course, there will be 16-year-olds and 15-year-olds who are very engaged, but equally there are older people who are not.
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
Order. First of all, interventions are short. Secondly, it is entirely up to the hon. Member who is speaking whether they take an intervention. The hon. Lady has kindly taken the intervention, but we do not want half an hour on it. I think we have had enough.
Mr Harper
Yes, but the important point that I have made was that they are not allowed to join the armed forces without their parents’ permission, so we do not accept that they are able to make such decisions. I accept that there are some things that people can do at the age of 16. The age of sexual consent is 16, although there are two scenarios in which we do not accept that someone under 18 is able to make a sensible decision. In a case under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 of abuse of a position of trust, we make a distinction between those aged 16 or 17, and those aged 18 or over. We make a similar distinction about whether someone is able to consent to be in pornography. We say that they are unable to do so until they are 18, for sensible reasons of child protection that I very much support.
Mark Field
My hon. Friend is making an important argument. It is also the case—perhaps he will come on to this—in relation to the purchase and consumption of tobacco products. The trend has been in an upwards direction, with the threshold age now 18. Likewise, in relation to driving, there is now a strong lobby that suggests, perhaps for good reasons, that people should not be behind the wheel of a car on their own under the age of 18. My hon. Friend is making a positive case that there is no consistent move towards the age of 16. If anything, we are militating in the opposite direction, with many of the threshold ages moving towards 18 and the age of majority.
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend makes a good point; I was coming to that. I have been involved in this argument since I was elected to Parliament in 2005, and have heard many of the arguments used in favour of various ages of consent for various activities. He is quite right. It is interesting that in many cases the age has been going upwards, often for sensible reasons: we are saying that we want to protect children from certain activities and that we do not think that they can make sensible judgments on some issues. However, I find it interesting that those who are keenest on votes for 16-year-olds—those who think that 16-year-olds should be able to decide who governs our country—are often the same people who are keenest to say in many other areas that 16-year-olds are not able to make decisions, and to increase the age limit. My hon. Friend makes a sensible point, to which I will come in a moment.
The hon. Member for Rotherham discussed the school leaving age and people’s ability to go out to work. Again, the trend on that issue is in the opposite direction to the one that she proposes. We are now mandating education or training until age 18, although I recognise that that applies in England and not in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. The driving age is one age limit that I, coming from a rural constituency, would rather keep at 17, because it enables children to be more mobile, especially those who have left school to go to work or those going into higher or further education. However, there are proposals to increase that minimum age as well.
We do not think that 16-year-olds should be able to purchase alcohol, but the age limit that has changed since I have been in Parliament, of course, is the one for purchasing tobacco, for sensible reasons. Personally, I have no problem with adults smoking. I do not think it is a pleasant habit, but I think that adults should be free to make the decision to smoke, although I would not do so myself. However, we think that we should protect children from tobacco, and we do not allow them to purchase it until they are 18. It would be a bit odd to say to children, “We don’t think you’re able to make a decision about smoking tobacco until you’re an adult, but”—to follow the hon. Lady’s argument—“we do think you’re able to vote for representatives who will make decisions about legislation.”
We do not let people gamble until they are 18, with the exception of playing the national lottery and buying certain scratchcards. Many film classifications still have an 18 certificate. We accept that there are many items of subject matter in films, videos and DVDs that we should not allow children to watch. Since I have been in Parliament, there has been an interesting debate—again, one of its proponents was someone who thinks that we should lower the voting age—after which the Houses of Parliament passed the Sunbeds (Regulation) Act 2010, in which we decided that those under 18 years of age were not capable of exercising a decision whether to have a tan or not. That may or may not be a sensible decision—I did not feel particularly strongly one way or the other—but I find it slightly odd that the same people who pass legislation saying that someone must be an adult to make such decisions think that we should lower the voting age. That is not very intellectually consistent.
Mark Field
My hon. Friend has set out the case well. To touch on what my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) just said, does he share my concern that there is a lot of cynicism involved in the argument? The perception of the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats is that they will reap some electoral dividend by being modern and allowing 16-year-olds to vote, yet there is little good evidence to suggest that the voting age should be reduced, other than the idea that those political parties will benefit from the votes of that young age group and that those of us who take the hopefully more balanced view that it is not necessarily in the interests of the electorate to be extended in that way will suffer from being seen as old and fuddy-duddy.
Mr Harper
I do not share that concern, for two reasons. My hon. Friend mentioned people’s motivations for change. I am perfectly happy to accept that the hon. Member for Rotherham is setting out a case that I have heard before from those in favour of the argument, and that it is reasonable. It is, of course, the case that certain people are in favour of allowing 16-year-olds to vote for one reason only; I am thinking of one particular First Minister of Scotland whose only reason for wanting young people to vote in the Scottish referendum was that he looked at opinion polling evidence from some time ago and thought that they would be more likely to vote in favour of Scottish independence. That is the only reason why he supported allowing them into the debate. Subsequently, of course, polling evidence showed that young people have changed their minds and are now opposed to independence.
That is why I am relaxed about the issue. First, I think that we should treat younger people with respect and argue our view, even if it does not necessarily accord with theirs. I think that we will actually get some credit for being prepared to say things to people with which they might not agree, but which we think are right. Secondly, to go back to votes for women, there were people on the left who thought that enfranchising women would mean that women voted for them. The lesson for our party—less true recently, but certainly true for the bulk of the 20th century—is that the enfranchisement of women meant that the Conservative party was in power when we otherwise would not have been if only men had had the right to vote.
Business of the House
Mark Field Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
We all appreciate that the timetabling of business in the House is an art more than a science. It is also the case that too much scrutiny of legislation happens in another place, which is a poor reflection on this House. Given the relatively light business expected in the next Session—rather like the present Session in terms of legislation—will my right hon. Friend give some thought to ensuring that more Committee stages are taken on the Floor of the House, not just for constitutional Bills but for the more controversial clauses, which would allow all Members to have their say in properly scrutinising Government legislation?
Mr Lansley
I am sorry, but I have to disagree with my hon. Friend. First, the amount of time spent in scrutiny of legislation in the two Houses is broadly comparable. Secondly, the time spent in scrutinising Bills—not least by allocating two days to Report in this House—is substantially higher in this Parliament than it has been in previous Parliaments, and is providing exactly the opportunity for scrutiny that he seeks. Thirdly, it is a matter of participation by Members. For example, on the Second Reading of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, I was staggered that only three Opposition Back Benchers were willing to debate that important Bill—and one of them was a Whip sent to the Back Benches to make up the numbers.
Business of the House
Mark Field Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman says and think that he makes an important point about the history and circumstances of his constituency. I cannot promise a debate, but he has put his important points on record and there may be further opportunities for him to raise them.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
May I associate myself with the words of the Front Benchers about Paul Goggins? Paul was a lovely man, and we worked together over the past three or so years as members of the Intelligence and Security Committee. The Leader of the House will be aware that that Committee has got some new and inflated powers, following the passage of the Justice and Security Act 2013. Will he therefore reinstitute the annual debate in Government time on matters of security and intelligence?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is right that that Committee has important new responsibilities and powers under that Act. It was not an invariable practice that the Government would hold an annual debate, but it is also the case that, when the Backbench Business Committee was established, it was clear that a number of general debates that had taken place in Government time previously should properly be considered by the Backbench Business Committee as debates in its time. I have had a continuing conversation about that with the Chairs of the ISC and the BBC.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Mark Field Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend has clearly done so much work on the issue that he anticipates one of the points that I was going to make. He is absolutely right.
I want first to illustrate the mismatch by comparing my constituency, Sheffield Central, with the neighbouring constituency, Sheffield, Hallam. I am glad that I shall be walking through the same Lobby later as my political neighbour, but the two constituencies are of a very different nature and they illustrate my argument.
Sheffield Central is inner city and multicultural; we have large council estates, houses in multiple occupation, two universities and very high levels of voter turnover. Already, 17% of households have nobody on the register. Sheffield, Hallam consists of our city’s leafy suburbs; it is largely monocultural with large areas of comfortable owner-occupation, and a very stable population. Only 4% of its households have nobody on the register. There is a huge disparity between the number of people represented by the MPs for those two constituencies.
I have made that point before, but I now have the advantage of supporting it with the latest information available, which is from the 2011 census. If the argument was reduced to a simple question of constituency size based on the number of registered voters, our two constituencies would appear to be pretty similar in size. However, if we compare the population according to the 2011 census with the number of voters registered on 2 January 2013 according to the council’s electoral registration officer, we can see that the picture is completely different. Sheffield Central has 76,596 registered voters whereas Sheffield, Hallam has 71,559—the difference is just 5,037, or 7%. According to the census, Sheffield Central has a population of 115,284 whereas Sheffield, Hallam has a population of 89,356, and so the difference is 25,928, or 20%.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I, too, am a representative of an inner-city seat. Surely the hon. Gentleman recognises, as I do, that one of the main reasons behind such differences is the number of non-UK nationals in a particular constituency who often live in households containing no UK nationals and therefore no UK voters. I know that puts a huge additional burden on him as a Member of Parliament, as it does on me—all these people require representation—but they are not UK nationals and therefore should not be voting in UK general elections.
Paul Blomfield
There is a bit of a difference between the two inner-city seats that the hon. Gentleman and I represent. Although there is some evidence to endorse his point, it does not explain the enormous disparity between the two seats in Sheffield.
Many of those who are excluded from the electoral register are precisely the people who form a huge proportion of my casework and I know that the situation will be the same for many Members who represent inner-city seats. More importantly, the combination of legislation means that their voice in Parliament will be reduced. If the Electoral Commission’s original concerns about the impact of the Bill came into being and were compounded by a process of redrawing boundaries based on the register as at December 2015, the gap would widen even more. If boundaries were redrawn based on an average electorate of 76,641, which was the basis for the Electoral Commission’s calculations, the actual population of Sheffield Central would be approaching 50% more than that of Sheffield, Hallam.
Some might argue that the Electoral Commission’s worst fears might no longer come true, particularly in the light of some of the concessions the Government have been forced to make. In the longer term that might be true, but crucially the next boundary review would be conducted at the low point of the registration cycle in December 2015. Let me make it clear that like those on my Front Bench I support the principle of equalisation. In so far as there is public interest in constitutional reform, that argument has enormous resonance with the public, but the people to whom I have spoken were shocked to learn that equalisation is based not on population but on the number of registered electors. The effect of the combined legislation will be not to reduce but to enhance inequity.
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend, and to ensure that I do not offend Mr Speaker or anyone else in the House, I welcome the opportunity to put on record the fact that I think all Liberal Democrat Members are honourable ladies and gentlemen, but I hope during my speech to point out to them what they would need to do to remain so by tomorrow morning.
The answer to this puzzle is found not in the amendments but in the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister has made it quite clear that Liberal support for the changes has been withdrawn because the House of Lords Bill could not be passed. I remind the House that that is the same Deputy Prime Minister who was quite categorical in his assurances that one had no influence over the other, while the battle for the constitution still raged. It has doubtless not helped the Liberals’ mood that the public so comprehensively rejected their plans for electoral reform. The Liberals have withdrawn their love because of a contrived slight.
The Deputy Prime Minister can repeat until he is blue in the face—although a fuller conversion to that colour might prove harder to achieve—that the programme for government promised Lords reform, but that will not make it true. There was never any obligation for Conservatives to support Lords reform, and I rebelled with a heavy heart but a clear conscience. Will the same be true for the Liberals in the wrong Lobby today?
Mark Field
I share much of my hon. Friend’s frustration, but does she agree that this row would not have happened if, instead of focusing on the rather fatuous arguments about saving a relatively small amount of money, we had set out to equalise the constituencies but to keep the number at 650 for this House?
Penny Mordaunt
Even if we set aside the vital matter of the absence of an obligation on Lords reform, to make the allegation that Conservatives broke a coalition promise requires considerable front. Thirty-six per cent. of the Liberal Democrats rebelled over tuition fees, by comparison with less than 30% of the Conservatives on Lords reform. It is only because the Liberals have fewer MPs than we do—that is, they received a smaller mandate from the people—that their rebellion did not matter.
Chris Ruane
He does not. I think that he has forgotten about the Act of 1536 which settled these issues.
Mark Field
The hon. Gentleman has a very selective memory on the actions of the previous Labour Government. The massive extension of postal voting and the resulting lack of trust that is now in the electoral system was brought about with the massive majority to which he referred. That has made an enormous difference to the running of our elections and has led to a huge amount of distrust, particularly in inner-city seats.
Chris Ruane
If the hon. Gentleman looks at one of the 400 questions that I have tabled on this issue, he will see that the number of people who have been prosecuted for electoral fraud each year is about one or two. That is bad; any electoral fraud is bad. If he looks at the other side of the scales of justice, he will see that there are not, as we thought, 3.5 million people missing off the register, but 6 million. If individual electoral registration had gone ahead as proposed by the Government, 16 million people would have been missing off the register.
Let us have a look at the pans of justice. With one or two cases a year of electoral fraud, all the resources are made available, but with 6.5 million people off the register, no resources are available. One of my questions, which was answered two weeks ago, asked for some numbers on this subject. If electors do not fill in the extra registration form, the electoral registration officer has to send a canvasser to their house at least twice—that is the law. Labour managed to implement that law, and in 2010 only eight local authorities disobeyed it; I think that they were all Tory authorities. In 2011, when the Tories had got their feet under the table, that figure massively increased, to 30 or 40. Of the 60 constituencies in England that do not send an electoral registration officer to knock on the doors of the non-registered, 55 are Conservative, one is Labour—Telford—and I think that the rest are Lib Dem. There is an element of politicisation in what the Conservative party is proposing.
Three years ago I went to see Experian to discuss the issue of the unregistered. I told its representatives that 3.5 million people were not on the register, but they said that the actual figure was 6.5 million. I took that information to the Electoral Commission, which said, “That can’t be true. We’ll do our own research on the issue.” Lo and behold, 18 months later, the commission came back to me and said, “Mr Ruane, you and Experian are absolutely right, but the 6.5 million people who are off the register are a different 6.5 million people from those noted by Experian.” I therefore asked the Electoral Commission whether 13 million people could be missing from the register; I said it tongue in cheek, but millions of people are missing from the register and the resources have not been made available to get them on to it.
Backbench Business Committee
Mark Field Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
This has been a passionate debate and I agreed with much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) had to say. Perhaps they gave their case a little less credit by resorting to elements of hyperbole—indeed, there were hints of hysteria coming from the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) —but I agree fundamentally with what they said. This Executive, like every other Executive and—this is even sadder to see—like the shadow Executive, have an unhealthy tendency to meddle in matters that are best left to Parliament. That should rightly be resisted and it is through the Backbench Business Committee that we try our best to resist.
Unlike any other Member who has spoken, perhaps, I think the motion is more of a curate’s egg. I believe that the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee should be an Opposition Member. As has been pointed out, in the initial election, my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst), who is a very good friend of mine and a distinguished parliamentarian, was pitted against the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire. I thought it would be very unhealthy for that role, particularly initially, to be in the hands of a former Deputy Speaker of 13 years’ standing who was therefore very much part of the establishment, so I voted with my head rather than my heart. Like every other Member who has spoken I have been extremely pleased with the outcome and I pay great tribute to the wonderful work that the hon. Lady does in chairing the Committee.
Let me pick up on the contribution of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire. The Leader of the House would do well to recognise that every single party in the House of Commons is a minority party, and I think it is quite wrong that we are prescribing the rights of the minority parties. The suggestion in amendment (a), which I think would have come through with the Procedure Committee, that there should be a special member for all the minority parties, is something we should follow.
I also believe there are very good reasons why the Backbench Business Committee should have some anonymity rules, as has been suggested by Ministers, for the election of its members, because it is by its nature an anonymous Committee: it is a Back-Bench Committee looking at Back-Bench business. I say that as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which, alongside the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges, has different election arrangements. Those anomalies are open to a certain amount of criticism but are, none the less, rightly tolerated. If we do not adopt that approach, we run the risk of having approved party candidates rather than those who have the broadest party support. I shall be supporting amendments (a) and (d). There are elements of the motion with which I agree, but I regret the way in which it has led to the rancour we have seen in the past hour or so in this debate.
Committee on Standards and Committee of Privileges
Mark Field Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Sir George Young
Again, the hon. Gentleman anticipates something that I may say a little later, but if he looks at paragraph 176 of the Wright Committee’s report, he will see what is deemed Back-Bench business and what is deemed business that the Government should schedule. It states:
“Backbenchers should schedule backbench business. Ministers should give up their role in the scheduling of any business except that which is exclusively Ministerial business, comprising Ministerial-sponsored legislation and associated motions, substantive non-legislative motions required in support of their policies and Ministerial statements”.
It may help the hon. Gentleman if I say that the Government will ensure that there is adequate time to debate on the Floor of the House any matter referred to the House by the Committee on Standards or the Committee of Privileges. I suspect that there will be a dialogue with the Backbench Business Committee to ensure that time is available at the appropriate moment.
Amendment (c), tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), would set down in Standing Orders a requirement that the membership of the two new Committees should always be the same. The Procedure Committee examined the case for a requirement of identical membership in paragraph 63 of its report, and concluded that the case had not been made. I recognise that there is a case for an element of shared membership, and possibly even for identical membership, but the Government, like the Procedure Committee, do not support the notion that there should be an inflexible provision to that effect in Standing Orders. With that assurance, I hope he will not move his amendment. In splitting the Standards and Privileges Committee, the Government do not intend to revisit the decisions taken at the beginning of this Session on appropriate Committee membership.
The second issue that has been raised about lay members is their status. The Committee on Standards and Privileges has stated that
“if the proposed external members of the Standards and Privileges Committee are to carry credibility, they need to have full voting rights.”
The Procedure Committee considered the matter carefully and in great detail, and it invited the House to study with care the arguments for and against full voting rights. As the Government made clear in our response, we have carefully considered the arguments about whether lay members should have full voting rights. We have concluded that it would not be appropriate to grant such rights in the first instance, in view of the authoritative evidence given to the Procedure Committee that it would create a risk that lay members’ participation would not have the protection of parliamentary privilege.
Lay members will be able to participate fully in evidence taking and informal consideration of draft reports. In addition, there will be two specific protections for their position. The first is the requirement that any written opinion of a lay member present at the relevant meeting on a report agreed by the Committee must be published as part of its report. The second is that the Committee cannot conduct any business unless at least one lay member is present.
A decision to proceed on that basis will provide a guarantee of the effective participation of lay members in the decision-making processes of the Committee, and can be taken without prejudice to subsequent consideration of full voting rights. The Government will consider the case for legislation that would place beyond doubt the position of a Committee on Standards including lay members with full voting rights, as part of our work on preparing the forthcoming draft parliamentary privilege Bill and the accompanying Green Paper.
The third and final issue that has been raised about lay members was voiced in the debate in December 2010 and echoed in the Procedure Committee’s report. It relates to the selection of lay members and control over how they subsequently carry out their work. The motion proposes to entrust that matter to the House of Commons Commission, which would also take responsibility for a motion for dismissal in the unlikely eventuality that it should prove necessary. I believe that the Commission, chaired by the Speaker, is the best way to ensure that there is a fair and open process that leads to the House being asked to appoint only excellent candidates.
I know that some concern has been expressed about the term of office of lay members. The Procedure Committee recommended single five-year terms. However, it also acknowledged uncertainty about appointments straddling two Parliaments. The motion therefore provides for appointments for the remainder of one Parliament and reappointments for a period of up to two years in a new Parliament. Although I understand the advantages of a single term, the Government remain to be convinced that it is appropriate for lay members to be appointed for a period that, by definition, lasts longer than the appointment of hon. Members. There will be a very strong presumption indeed that lay members will be reappointed for a further term at the start of the subsequent Parliament. If they were not, the Committee on Standards would find it difficult to operate. I offer my commitment that the Government will assist in such a process.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I accept that there is a general demand for lay members, but I am sceptical as to how independent-minded they will be—I have in mind the less-than-independent IPSA as a guideline. I will not detain the Leader of the House on that.
There is a more detailed issue: cost. If lay members are involved in the Committee on Standards, especially lay members with a legal background, surely any Member of the House before it will demand expensive legal representation. Will the cost of that representation be met by the Committee, or will an individual Member be expected to meet it through his own resources?
Sir George Young
There are no changes to the resources available to hon. Members who appear before the Standards Committee. We are suggesting a per diem remuneration for independent members—£300, I believe, which is parallel to what independent members of SCIPSA are paid. In putting lay members on the Standards Committee, we are not making any other changes to how the Committee operates. As I said earlier in answer to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the memorandum says that all the basic rules for the two separate Committees remain unchanged apart from the addition of lay members.
Mark Field
There might be no desire to change the Committee’s procedure, but I suspect that there will be a different approach outside, particularly among the media. There will be much more scrutiny of a Committee that has lay members, particularly if they are high-profile legal figures. What protection will there be for MPs who find themselves subject to an investigation under the new regime, so that they have what they consider to be essential legal advice, which might come extremely expensively?
Sir George Young
My answer now is the same one I gave to my hon. Friend a moment ago: there is no change in the resources available to hon. Members. Currently, some decide to take legal advice and pay for it out of their own pocket; others simply represent themselves. We are not proposing changes to the way in which Members interface with the Committee, but seeking to ensure that the Committee’s decisions have greater credibility in the outside world by adding lay members to it. That is the only change that we propose to make.