Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Mark Harper Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

First, let me briefly comment on the fact that before you took the Chair, Mr Hoyle, we had a former miner in the Chair and two Tellers who were also former miners, so, as the MP for the Rhondda I felt quite at home. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the amendment, I am afraid.

The amendment has been charmingly moved by the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who is absolutely right. This is an issue that I have tried to raise on several occasions—

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

Not so charmingly.

[Chris Bryant]

The Minister says that not so charmingly himself, so the favour goes back to him.

Under the clause, new subsection (5A) would read:

“As soon as may be after the submission of all four reports under subsection (1) above that are required by subsection (2) above to be submitted before a particular date, the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament the draft of an Order in Council for giving effect, with or without modifications, to the recommendations contained in them.”

So the Boundary Commission will bring forth its report, there will be no public inquiry and the Minister will then bring forward the boundaries with or without modifications. It is the phrase “with or without modifications” that I have difficulty with, and clearly the Select Committee does too.

The hon. Lady mentioned that her Committee had to do its business very swiftly. Indeed, I think it had only five days in which to undertake a whole inquiry. That is one reason why I believe the Bill is being taken through with undue haste. A substantial number of amendments have been tabled and will be considered on Monday, but we already know that some of them are inaccurate and will be modified when the Government bring forward territorial statutory instruments in relation to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I very much hope that the Minister will enlighten us as to whether those statutory instruments will be subject to the affirmative or negative procedure. [Interruption.] That is not what will happen on Monday because the measures are not going to be debated next Monday at all, contrary to what the Deputy Leader of the House has just said from a sedentary position.

The Government believe that we should retain in present legislation the phrase “with or without modifications”. That is a pretty broad power.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Bearing in mind what the hon. Gentleman used to say when he was in opposition, I should have thought that he would support the scrutiny of legislation—and one has to talk to scrutinise legislation. No, we have not had enough time to scrutinise the Bill because there are four clauses and some schedules on which we have not had any debate at all. In addition, the Government have tabled 100 pages of amendments that we are going to debate on Monday, which means that we will not be able to debate issues such as the one that he is interested in—cutting the number of Ministers. I shall not take any lectures from him on how long one should speak in the House or on how much scrutiny there should be.

[Mr Harper]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

Of course I will give way to the eminently charming gentleman.

[Mr Harper]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that the House requires more time to debate the Bill, why did he vote against the programme motion last week, which gave the House more time to debate it?

[Chris Bryant]

The Minister has clearly lost his marbles—it was because it did not give us enough time. The way in which the Government have behaved over this Bill has been an absolute shoddy mistake. They have consistently refused to provide enough time for us to debate the issues. [Interruption.] No, we did not vote against more time—we voted against the programme motion and we will continue to vote against such programme motions because we want to be able to do this job properly.