House of Lords Reform

Lord Harper Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I would make sure that my leader, if he were the Deputy Prime Minister, negotiated properly for a fully elected second Chamber so that the problems that have been highlighted did not occur. What has happened—[Interruption.] I hear the chuntering both from Government Front Benchers and from Liberal Democrat Members, whose concerns and aspirations I will come to in a moment. We remember the sanctimony of Liberal Democrat Members when we were in government. I will talk about the progress that has been made over the past 13 years, but I accept that there was not enough.

We have also heard that 100 years is too long to wait for those who sit in the Lords to be elected, and those of us who want a fully elected second Chamber understand the wish to proceed sooner rather than later, but there are many issues that the Deputy Prime Minister has not addressed in the draft Bill or in the White Paper, and with the best will in the world it is simply unrealistic to expect the Joint Committee to have resolved them by February, as he wants it to.

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

If the right hon. Gentleman is in favour only of 100% election as a matter of great principle, why when the House last determined the matter in 2007 did he vote for all the elected options that were on offer?

[Sadiq Khan]

The hon. Gentleman might not recall, but in 2003 this Chamber rejected all seven options, so it was important to ensure that some proposals went through. They went through, and both the party that he is now in coalition with and our party had in their manifestos a promise of a 100% elected second Chamber. We are not in government; the Liberal Democrats are.

The genuine obstacles and difficulties that remain require solutions, but they are not limited to the two areas to which the Deputy Prime Minister referred. First, we must identify exactly what we want a reformed House of Lords to do. My view, and I agree with some of the interventions from Government Members, is that it should continue as a revising Chamber that seeks to finesse legislation and, yes, on occasions, to act as a check on this House. We might not like it, and when in government we might all prefer to push our legislation through without any opposition from the second Chamber, but its role is an important check on this House and on the Executive, and that is right and proper and part of a healthy democracy. Too few checks are bad for all of us, and it is important that we preserve the balance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman has explained the difficulties with the Labour party’s position. Given that he voted in 2007 for an 80% elected House of Lords, will he confirm whether that is still his position?

[Sir Stuart Bell]

I certainly voted for an 80% elected Upper Chamber, but never on the basis of proportional representation—never! A number of votes were taken on that occasion, but Members who were present at the time know that they were no more than wrecking votes or wrecking amendments. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting voted for every motion put to the House that night. [Interruption.] He said so earlier.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s very positive winding-up speech. He clearly listens to the debate in this House, which is unlike that in the House of Lords. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in the House of Lords debate last week, there were 101 Back-Bench speakers, of whom 19 were in favour of a wholly or mainly elected House, at least in principle. I thought that was actually quite encouraging, given the turkeys and Christmas principle. It is worth noting that 68 of those speakers were former Members of this House, which gives the lie to the idea that all those who speak in the other place are disinterested experts; they are largely people who have been in politics and remain in politics. It seems to me that such people would have no problem standing for election.

Our debate was more balanced. Out of 34 Back-Bench speakers, I counted 15 who were broadly in favour of the proposals, 16 who were not in favour and three who were broadly in favour of reform, but had significant concerns about our proposals. It was a fairly balanced debate, which I think is why the Opposition Front Benchers became more enthusiastic about our proposals as the debate proceeded. The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) started very positively by saying that he was committed to a 100% elected Chamber. However, I detected that there was a danger of his letting the best be the enemy of the good.

The right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) gave a sensible counsel of action. He made it clear that he was in favour of a 100% elected Chamber, as is my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. However, neither of them wants to let attempting perfection prevent any reform whatever, and both think that ending up with 80% of Members of the House of Lords being elected would be an improvement on the position that we have today. I hope that other Members will pay attention to that.

It is worth reminding everyone at the beginning of my remarks that we are considering a White Paper and a draft Bill. We are carrying out pre-legislative scrutiny, which we were urged to do on previous constitutional Bills. A Joint Committee has been set up, with 13 Members of this House and 13 Members of the other place of varying degrees of enthusiasm for reform. If we look at the Committee in the round, we see that it is broadly representative. I hope that it will consider the issues raised in the House of Lords last week and the House of Commons today. I know that a significant number of its Commons members were present today and listened to the debate either in full or in part.

[Mark Durkan]

Is the Joint Committee not really going to be just a theatre for screensaver politics, in which images are going to be projected, an impression of activity and movement generated and shapes thrown, but nothing real will actually be achieved?

[Mr Harper]

I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman is wrong. There are serious people on the Committee, and it is chaired by a very senior Member of the other place, the noble Lord Richard. It has the capacity to consider the matter seriously, examine our White Paper and our draft Bill and bring forward a serious report that we in this House and the other place will consider. It has that opportunity, and it is up to the Committee whether it decides to grasp it or to do what the hon. Gentleman says. From looking at the members of the Committee appointed from this House and the other place, I have confidence that it will take the matter seriously. The Government will listen to it if it engages seriously in the process, and I hope that it will.

A number of Members wondered why are introducing these proposals. The simplest answer is that those who make the laws should be elected. One Member of the other place, who will remain nameless, said last week that she did not believe there was a democratic deficit, or that elections were the only form of democracy. In response, the noble Lord Sharkey said:

“She argued that the scale of the House’s outreach and its collective wisdom constitute a kind of democratic system.”

He continued, in a way that I thought was appropriate to the House of Lords, that that allowed

“a much more flexible definition of democracy than is usual.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 June 2011; Vol. 728, c. 1233.]

I agree with him. Democracy is based on direct election to key institutions, and the House of Lords is a key institution that makes laws. It is a legislating body. Having been responsible for steering legislation through Parliament, I am not sure about the idea that the other place simply gives the Government advice, and it is entirely up to us, in a relaxed manner, whether we take it or leave it. I am afraid that was not my experience of trying to get legislation through the other place. It is part of this Parliament, so its Members should be elected.

A number of Members suggested today that they had concerns about primacy, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), who was the first Back Bencher to speak, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley). We have not said in our proposals that there will be no changes if Members of the other place are elected. We have said that there will be an evolution of the relationship between the two Houses, but that ultimately the primacy of this House is guaranteed by the Parliament Acts. We control the supply of money, and ultimately we can pass legislation without the agreement of the other place. The relationship will change, as it has over the past century. It has changed since last year, with the advent of a coalition Government and the fact that the Salisbury-Addison convention does not operate in the same way, if at all. That change will continue, but ultimately this House is supreme, and that is guaranteed by law.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), supported by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), made the point that this is not a zero-sum game. Improving the way in which the other place works could mean that our game is raised, and that collectively these Houses will do a better job of holding the Government to account. Many Members have referred to the role of the other place, which is to scrutinise and revise legislation, but also to hold the Government to account. Both Houses have a responsibility to do that, and both could do it better.

I say to those concerned about primacy that we considered carefully how to constitute the other place and examined ways of preventing it from being able to argue that it was more legitimate than this House. We proposed a different system of election, and elections by thirds, so that the House of Lords never has a more recent mandate than the House of Commons. We have said that Members should be legitimate by being elected, but we recognise that they will not be as accountable as us because they cannot be re-elected. They cannot therefore argue that they are more legitimate and usurp our powers.

Let us consider the point about talents and skills. Broadly 25% of the current House of Lords are Cross Benchers; the rest are already party political nominees appointed by the party leaders and the Executive. The idea that the other place is somehow free of politics or party politics is simply wrong. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald) explained that elections will be an improvement on patronage.

The hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) said that the House of Lords was larger than all Assemblies except China’s National People’s Congress, which has more than 3,000 Members. That was a particularly topical reference given Premier Wen’s visit today. I will not pass on that news to the Prime Minister—he might think that 3,000 Members is a target for which to aim rather than something to be discouraged.

The serious point is that the other place has talented Members on the Cross Benches and the party political Benches, but I strongly agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda: so does this place. Someone mentioned a national health service debate in the other place, in which Lord Howe of Aberavon referred to the number of experts there. We have them in this House, too. We have a practising dentist, a former GP, a former hospital doctor, former nurses, former members of the armed forces, former business people, former opticians—[Interruption.] I skipped over lawyers deliberately, but we have other talented people who can contribute to the House. We should not do ourselves down and pretend that Members of this House do not have a lot to offer.

I have been present for the entire debate and I have read Hansard for the two days of debate in the other place last week. Frankly, I must say that more fresh and considered ideas about improving the draft Bill came out of today’s debate from elected Members of this House than emerged from the debate last week.

One or two hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), asked why we favoured proportional representation. The answer is simple. First, the Government should not have a majority in the other place. It should not be a carbon copy of this House, so the system should be different. We selected single transferable vote in the draft Bill. We recognise that there is a case for an open list. The STV system would reduce parties’ control and allow Members to be more independent. People said that they liked that aspect of the existing House of Lords.

I agreed with the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) when he said that having first past the post in this House, which he and I supported in the recent referendum, and proportional representation in the House of Lords, forms a solid constitutional settlement. The two Chambers have a different role and should therefore have different electoral systems that play to those different roles.

For the future, we have a draft Bill, and both Houses have appointed a Joint Committee, which can start its work. Both Houses have given the Committee an “out” date—we want it to report by 29 February next year. If the Committee wants more time, it can come back to both Houses, as is usual. The Government will listen to what the Committee states in its report. We have listened carefully to the debate last week and today, and we will continue to listen to hon. Members’ views. We will listen and adapt our proposals, and in the next Session we will introduce a Bill to reform the other place, with the first elections in 2015. I hope that we will get the support of as many Members as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of House of Lords reform.

City Status Competition (Dumfries)

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Written Statements

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

In the written ministerial statement I made on 16 June 2011, Official Report, column 74WS, Dumfries was listed as having entered the competition for city status. The documentation sent to the Cabinet Office clearly stated that the bid had been submitted by Dumfries and Galloway council, a statement that was accepted in good faith. It has since become apparent that the bid was not submitted by the council. As all applications for the civic honours competition must be submitted by the relevant local authority, the application will not be considered further as part of the competition.

Diamond Jubilee Civic Honours Competitions

Lord Harper Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Written Statements

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

On 1 December 2010 I announced the launch of the diamond jubilee civic honours competitions for the grant of city status and of lord mayoralty (or, in Scotland, lord provostship) to mark Her Majesty the Queen’s diamond jubilee in 2012. The closing date for entries was 27 May 2011.

I am pleased to announce that 26 applications for city status and 12 for lord mayoralties have been received. This is a magnificent response to the competition and it is clear an impressive amount of effort has gone into all the applications that have been submitted.

The full list of applicants for city status is:

Bolton

Bournemouth

Chelmsford

Colchester

Coleraine

Corby

Craigavon

Croydon

Doncaster

Dorchester

Dudley

Dumfries

Gateshead

Goole

Luton

Medway

Middlesbrough

Milton Keynes

Perth

Reading

Southend

St Asaph

St Austell

Stockport

Tower Hamlets

Wrexham

The cities applying for a lord mayoralty are:

Armagh

Cambridge

Derby

Gloucester

Lancaster

Newport (Gwent)

Peterborough

Salford

Southampton

St Albans

Sunderland

Wakefield

The process of assessing the entries will begin shortly. Careful consideration will be given to all applications, after which Ministers will formally provide their advice to Her Majesty, as such honours are awarded under the royal prerogative. The results are expected to be announced early in 2012.

City Status (Reading)

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Westminster Hall

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

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hancock.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) on securing the debate and on setting out Reading’s case clearly. During the course of the debates on city status, I have had some interesting offers. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) urged me to be Southend’s valentine, because we had the debate on Valentine’s day, and my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West has urged me to holiday in Reading during the summer. I fear that I may have to disappoint him in the same way I had to disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West. I have to remain impartial, and holidaying in Reading may demonstrate a lack of impartiality. Therefore, I fear that I must decline his very kind offer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reading West joins another of our colleagues, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), who also secured a debate to set out the case for his area to become a city. As part of the bid, I have learned a large number of things of both of those areas and about the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West and the town that he represents. Indeed, I suspect that other hon. Members whose areas are bidding for city status will have detected a pattern and that you and I, Mr Hancock—as well as your colleagues on the Panel of Chairs—will be treated to a continuing tour of our United Kingdom. I very much look forward to that.

My hon. Friend set out Reading’s case very well and was joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson). I confirm that Reading’s entry for the diamond jubilee competition for city status has been safely received. It is one of 26 entries seeking city status, and 12 entries have also sought lord mayoralty status for existing cities. The level of interest and enthusiasm that clearly came across from the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West shows how much the country is looking forward to celebrating Her Majesty’s diamond jubilee next year and how attractive such a civic honour is to local communities.

My hon. Friend spotted that I will not be able to agree or disagree with him in my response and that I must remain neutral and fair. At this stage, I can no more endorse Reading’s aspirations than I can any other competition entrant. Ministers must remain impartial to ensure that city status continues to be a real honour that is fairly bestowed and that the competition remains fair. My hon. Friend recognised that fairness is important, because there are no hard and fast criteria on becoming a city. City status continues to be an honour granted by the sovereign. Nowadays, it follows a competition and is a rare mark of distinction bestowed on a town. Reasons for success or failure are not given in these competitions and city status is not something that towns can gain by ticking off a list of pre-set criteria.

The reasons for that are obvious. Existing cities vary tremendously. As my hon. Friend has mentioned, some are large and some are small; some have wonderful cathedrals, universities, airports, underground systems or trams; and some do not have those physical features, but boast a vibrant cultural life. We have set out some of the qualities that we expect a city to have—a vibrant, welcoming community with an interesting history and a distinct identity. My hon. Friends the Members for Reading West and for Reading East have eloquently set out Reading’s claim in those and other respects. I assure them and their constituents—the people of their town—that Reading’s entry will receive a thorough and impartial appraisal, together with the many other entries in the competition. The process is just getting under way. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading West has waved his bid at me to secure my interest, and the plan is that we will announce the result early in 2012.

On the point about territorial ambitions made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), let me reassure them and make the matter clear. The local authority is bidding for city status based on existing local authority boundaries. Nothing in what the Government will recommend to Her Majesty about city status will affect the powers that that town has. On that specific point, I hope that I have reassured by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham. I detected their qualified support for the bid, which has clearly stirred up interest not only in the town of Reading, but among its neighbours.

My hon. Friends the Members for Reading West and for Reading East have set out their case well. Ministers will assess that case along with the others in the process. As I have said, we look forward to announcing the results in early 2012 as we go into Her Majesty’s diamond jubilee year.

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

As a Member who has the privilege to represent one of our cities, I know what it means to people, so I wish Reading all the very best. The Minister and Member are present for the next debate, so we can move straight on. Will those Members who are leaving do so quietly and quickly?

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

6. What recent assessment he has made of arrangements for the provision of postal votes on demand.

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

We have made no specific assessment of postal voting on demand, but we of course keep postal voting under review as we consider electoral administration in general.

[Graham Evans]

There have been widespread reports of shocking abuses of postal votes, especially in areas with high levels of multiple occupancy housing. Will my hon. Friend tell the House what steps the Government are taking to stamp out postal vote fraud and ensure honesty in our elections?

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. He will know that we are introducing individual voter registration before the next general election, which will mean that everyone who wants to cast an absent vote, a postal vote in this case, will have to register individually and provide their identifiers to their registration officer in order to make the register more secure.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Conservative Members are very prone to making rash statements about alleged postal vote fraud, and not just in this House, but in another place. I have been in correspondence with the Minister and regularly asked the Leader of the House whether he can get Baroness Warsi to retract her statement that the Conservative party was robbed of a majority at the last election because of electoral fraud on behalf of the Labour party, particularly in the Asian community. Although a Cabinet member, she resolutely refuses to reply. Will the Minister do so now on her behalf?

[Mr Harper]

The right hon. Gentleman raised this matter at business questions. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House drew it to my attention, as I am the Minister responsible for that policy area, and I replied as quickly as possible and gave the right hon. Gentleman a full answer. If he wishes to raise it with me again and ask me anything—[Interruption.] If Labour Members would actually listen, they might hear my answer. If he would like to ask me anything that I have not already answered in my letter, I would be delighted to write to him again.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

7. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on steps to facilitate voting in elections by service personnel serving abroad.

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

I have discussed that issue with the Minister responsible for defence personnel, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan), and our officials in the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Defence are continuing to work on proposals to make it easier for our brave service personnel abroad to be able to participate in general elections. The hon. Lady will know some details about that from the written answers I gave her last week.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I thank the Minister for that answer, but I am disappointed by the lack of urgency with which his Government are addressing the matter. I was shocked to find that, as a result of the Government’s initiative in relation to voting on 5 May this year, only 40 of the thousands of service personnel deployed in Afghanistan voted in secret by post in the referendum, compared with the 217 who voted by post in the general election last year. At a public meeting in October 2008—

[Lilian Greenwood]

The Deputy Prime Minister assured my constituent Devina Worsley that he and the Armed Forces Minister would take action to address the issue. Is that another broken promise, or is he just not up to the job?

[Mr Harper]

I thought that we were going to get something good then, but that was clearly rehearsed. The hon. Lady will know from my detailed answer that the number of people who voted in the specific initiative that we set up, building on the one that the Labour party undertook for the general election, does not take into account all personnel in Afghanistan, some of whom will have registered separately. She will know also that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has made it clear that the Government plan to lengthen the campaign period for general elections so that overseas voters, including our service personnel, have more opportunity to vote. That is a very clear promise—

[Mr Speaker]

We are immensely grateful to the Minister.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

When the Minister talks to the Ministry of Defence about voting, will he try to ensure that not just the way our servicemen and women vote but the way they are required to register is as simple as possible?.

[Mr Harper]

I agree, and we are doing two things. We are going to make registering as a service voter more straightforward, and we are going to undertake some data-matching pilots with a number of local authorities, working with the Ministry of Defence, so that we can look at improving the way service personnel are registered so they all have the chance to register and vote in elections.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

8. What discussions he has had with the Electoral Commission on the conduct of elections for police and crime commissioners.

Review of Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

Lord Harper Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) on securing the debate and on his revised motion, which the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said he can support, and which the Government can also support. Setting up a Committee to carry out post-legislative reviews to see how legislation actually takes effect is something that we are always being urged to do in the House, and it is welcome. It will provide Members with the opportunity to put forward facts and the Committee with the opportunity to take evidence and then to come back to the House with its recommendations for consideration. I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful and measured speech, which was referred to by Members on both sides of the House.

My hon. Friend’s motion is very sensible in focusing on the important things—value for money, accountability and public confidence. It also refers to the need to ensure

“that Members are not deterred from submitting legitimate claims.”

I want him to clarify one part of his speech because I am not sure that I heard it correctly. I think he said that 92% of Members do not claim for things for which they are legitimately allowed to claim, but I would be grateful if he could confirm that. I have not seen that data published, and I would be grateful if he could provide some detail.

[Adam Afriyie]

I certainly will. This is based on the evidence that I have received and that the 1922 committee demonstrated some time ago—that is, that 92% of hon. Members are not claiming for all the categories for which they are entitled to claim. That would need to be examined; I make no judgment on it right now.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for clarifying that, which is very helpful.

As my hon. Friend and the right hon. Member for Leeds Central said, several things have happened since we last debated IPSA in December. At that time, IPSA had not carried out its review of the scheme, and many Members took the opportunity of that debate to put on record their specific concerns not only about the operation of the scheme but its rules. One or two Members have done that today, but in December the comments were much more focused on individual circumstances. IPSA has listened to some of those concerns. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it recognised when it set up the scheme that it did not get everything right in terms of its rules and how it operated. To be fair, it has acknowledged that and put some of those things right, particularly as regards enabling us to do our jobs properly. The Government, and all Members, are concerned about ensuring that the system helps rather than hinders.

As the right hon. Members for Oxford East (Mr Smith) and for Leeds Central said, it is important that we have an independent body that oversees the expenses system and how it operates. We must also have a transparent system. As the right hon. Member for Leeds Central said, it is the sunlight of transparency that helps to ensure that it works properly.

[Adam Afriyie]

My hon. Friend is talking about the Brandeis doctrine; Brandeis was a Supreme Court judge in the early 1900s. The review will also need to look at what subsequent academics have said about this. Sunlight is a great disinfectant, but it is conditional on the information that is provided being comparable and on it being disaggregated, so that not only grouped claims or information are published. It is also conditional on the information being standardised, and any review will need to look into those issues.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. This is a good opportunity to leap forward to a point I was going to make later, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) when he talked about the publication of data. I know that it can be uncomfortable for hon. Members when information is published, but we are going to have to get used to it, and there is no going back.

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There is a debate to be had, and these are matters that IPSA can think about. There are ways of publishing information that make it comparable and deal with the league table problem, but also make it very matter of fact and not very interesting to the press. There is an argument that if we publish the information in real time as we go along, and do not save it up and publish it in lumps—the point made by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire—it becomes normal, matter-of-fact, routine business that is not of interest to the media. I think it is fair to say that it has become much less interesting to the national media; we do not tend to see the front page stories any more. I know, however, that individual hon. Members often have to deal with local newspaper stories where their papers drill down into particular claims that, in isolation, take a fair degree of explanation but are perfectly reasonable claims for carrying out their work.

[Adam Afriyie]

I conducted a review of regional and local newspaper publications. The evidence is pretty conclusive. The bimonthly publication we looked at had about 28 million readers. We found that 97% of local newspaper stories were negative towards MPs, and 63% of the stories made unfair or misleading comparisons about MPs and their claims. A lot of this was generated by the way in which the information was being provided to the media under the current scheme. Again, that is something we will look at.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. This is an opportunity to acknowledge that, as other Members have said, he has done a lot of analytical work. Depending on what the House decides about who serves on the Committee, I am sure that his research will be of great help as it carries out its work.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I would add that it is not just about the local media; the BBC in the north-east has taken the approach of doing league tables rather than any analysis of the information. Even though I have tried to FOI the expenses of the journalists on the “Politics Show” in the north-east, the BBC has refused to release them, and I now have an appeal with the Information Commissioner. If this is about public money and transparency, should not other bodies such as the BBC also have their expenses published?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to draw me into a much wider debate about public transparency, but this is not the right time for that. He will know that there are ongoing discussions between the BBC and the National Audit Office about various issues, and I am sure that they will carry on. I am not going to take his invitation to dwell on those issues today.

I want to return to the annual review that IPSA undertook. I think it is fair to say that it made some changes to the scheme and has made it better and easier for Members to operate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor said, it has effectively given us more discretion about judging what things are relevant to our parliamentary duties and carrying out our responsibilities. That then raises some other questions, which is welcome. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), who chairs the liaison committee, acknowledged the progress that has been made on office costs and on travel, although he acknowledged that there was work to be done in other areas of expenses. It is worth saying that there has been progress, although I know that many Members think that there has not been enough and needs to be more.

Members referred to value for money, which is specifically mentioned in the motion. It is worth setting out a little more detail. The right hon. Member for Leeds Central referred to the NAO report. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has received a letter from the Comptroller and Auditor General setting out the details of that. The NAO is going to carry out a study of IPSA, and the report will be produced before the summer recess.

An interesting fact of which Members should be aware is that the NAO is going to survey all serving Members of Parliament asking about their experience of IPSA and the expenses scheme. It is moving quite swiftly on the study. It is going to send out questionnaires this coming Monday—16 May—allowing us a fortnight to respond before the Whit recess, and it has asked for Government support in encouraging Members to participate. I do not think, having listened to the debate, talked to several of my colleagues and heard what the right hon. Member for Leeds Central said about his conversations with the parliamentary Labour party, that Members will need much encouragement to send back their responses. They should take this opportunity to focus on how well the scheme is working, including value for money and ease of use, so that the NAO can take that into account.

[Helen Jones]

It is encouraging to hear that the NAO will survey Members. Will the NAO’s value-for-money audit include the cost of the vast amount of time spent by Members and their staff doing work that was previously done elsewhere?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

The Comptroller and Auditor General makes it clear that all the NAO’s work will be independent and evidence based. The answer to the hon. Lady’s question is that it is for Members to provide the NAO with that evidence. The NAO has a brief to look at the public sector as a whole; as its masthead says, it is “Helping the nation spend wisely”. If Members feel, as a number have said today, that there is a problem not just with the bureaucratic system, but with the time spent administering it by them and their staff, who are employed at public cost, they should take the opportunity to furnish the NAO with that information. I might be going a little beyond my remit here. I do not know how detailed the questionnaire will be. There might not be a specific question about this matter, but I suspect that there will be. If Members provide this information, the NAO will be able to take it into account. It is no good the NAO just looking at the scheme and the direct costs incurred by IPSA. If, because of the way IPSA is operating, it is putting an extra burden on our offices, which are funded by the taxpayer, the NAO should take that into account. The hon. Lady’s point is therefore very helpful, and Members should give the NAO as much information as possible, so that it can write a sensible, evidence-based report with recommendations. No doubt those recommendations will then be considered by the Public Accounts Committee, as is the usual process, and the Committee that we are setting up.

The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which was passed in the last Parliament, amended the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 to give IPSA a general duty to behave in a cost-effective, efficient manner, and to support MPs to carry out their work efficiently, cost-effectively and transparently. IPSA therefore has a statutory duty to do what it does transparently and independently, and cost-effectively. The NAO report will help to advise IPSA on whether it is complying with the duties it has to carry out under the law that set it up.

[Mr Leigh]

Will the Minister assure that House that when all this excellent work has been done and the Committee makes its recommendations, the Government —I know that he cannot give any absolute promises—will seek to give us a fair wind so that we can implement them?

[Mr Harper]

As with all reports from Committees of this House, the Government will look carefully at the recommendations. I do not think that my hon. Friend would expect me, given that the Committee has not even been set up, let alone started its work, to give assurances that the Government will carry out its every recommendation. The Government will of course study its recommendations. If its recommendations are about process, the scheme and how IPSA operates, they will be for IPSA to consider. Only if they are recommendations for legislative change will they be for the Government to recognise. Every Member who has spoken in this debate has confirmed that they are in favour of an independent and transparent scheme for paying our costs. Clearly, even if Members thought that there were issues, they would not immediately want the Government to rush into legislating. The right hon. Member for Leeds Central said wisely that when this House legislates on such matters in haste, it often comes to repent it.

The Government will look carefully at the considerations that the Committee makes, and I hope that IPSA will look carefully at them. If the review is carried out in that spirit, I think that it will be very productive.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

I want to underline the importance of the point that the Minister has just made. Will he assure us that the Government’s response will scrupulously and absolutely uphold the independence of IPSA?

[Mr Harper]

Yes; I have said that several times and it is important. Although this House has many new Members, it is important that we remember why we got to this position. We have to ensure that we move things forward, and focus on independence and transparency. We have had debates recently on our pay, and the consideration of our pay will be moved across to IPSA in the not-too-distant future. Its independence is important so that people have confidence. The Committee, when it is set up, will have to remember that the recommendations it makes about the scheme and the operation of the scheme will be made to IPSA.

[Mr Charles Walker]

Does the Minister accept that when we legislate in haste, as we did in 2009, such legislation sometimes has to be revisited and amended with the benefit of hindsight?

[Mr Harper]

I made a distinction in my remarks. Clearly, if the Committee, or indeed the National Audit Office, makes recommendations about value for money and cost-effectiveness in the way IPSA operates, IPSA will pay attention to them, as with all its recommendations. It may be that the Committee makes recommendations about legislative change. However, we do not want to go back to a system in which the Government—heaven forbid—or the House start to micro-manage the details of the scheme. We have an independent system with transparency, and it is important that we stick with that. The Committee needs to bear that in mind. There will be two important audiences for what the Committee recommends. In the same way that we should not legislate in haste, we should not re-legislate in haste and change things further. The Committee needs to bear that in mind when it considers this matter, and should not immediately leap to the conclusion that we have to change the entire structure of the system.

[Mr Leigh]

There is a third audience: the taxpayer. Ultimately, nobody is independent of the House of Commons, because the House of Commons is not for us, but for the people—we represent the people and the taxpayer. If serious recommendations are made and IPSA ignores them, the House of Commons has a right to vote on its estimates and to reduce the amount it spends on administration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes the position very clear. A structure has been set up with the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which heard evidence from IPSA this week and questioned it about its estimate. More work is being done to deal with the hon. Gentleman’s point about cost-effectiveness and IPSA’s budget to ensure that at this difficult time for public expenditure, IPSA is as efficient and cost-effective as possible. However, it would be a mistake if we immediately leapt away from an independent, transparent system, which is what the Government, the Opposition, and every Member who has spoken in this debate supports. We cannot have an independent system and simultaneously give it instructions on how to do its job.

The Government look forward to the Committee’s work and give a commitment that we will look at its recommendations with great care. I will obviously not make any commitments about what we will do until we have seen the report. The Committee should do a thorough job and we look forward to its report. We also look forward to seeing what the NAO has to say. I think that that is a sensible way forward. On that basis, the Government are very relaxed about the motion in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor.

Service Voting (Afghanistan)

Lord Harper Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Written Statements

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

The Government have put in place an initiative to support the participation of members of the armed forces serving in Afghanistan who wish to vote in the referendum and elections on 5 May.

Following a dedicated registration push for those facing the most difficult of circumstances while serving in Afghanistan, service personnel will be able to use either a proxy or postal vote to take part in the polls.

Special forms produced by the Electoral Commission have been provided to relevant units, both for those going out to Afghanistan and those already there, to fill out to register to vote, and to choose how they wish to vote. The Ministry of Defence is undertaking targeted activity to encourage soldiers to register to vote before they leave the UK and each person arriving in Afghanistan will be briefed on the initiative.

Troops who fill out the forms and request a postal vote will be sent ballot forms via the British Forces Post Office (BFPO), utilising existing supply routes.

Once completed by the service voters, the ballot papers will be returned to the UK and distributed to returning officers using a network of BFPO, Royal Mail and local authority support put in place for the initiative.

Alongside this, counting officers and returning officers have been asked to prioritise the production of all postal ballot packs that are to be sent overseas. Those heading for BFPO addresses will be treated as a priority by BFPO to facilitate service personnel participation in the polls more widely.

This initiative builds on that put in place for the general election in 2010. It is right that we make it as easy as possible for our service personnel on operations in Afghanistan to take part in the referendum and elections on 5 May.

West Lothian Question

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Paul Murphy]

The issue of whether England, by which I mean English regions—I shall come to that in a second—should have its own regional governments is a different matter. That is, ultimately, the answer to the question. Incidentally, I say this to the hon. Gentleman, who is leaving: I recently read a quotation from a senior Conservative, who said in the 1960s, in a discussion on the West Lothian question—it was not called that at the time—that

“every Member of the House of Commons is equal with every other Member of the House of Commons.”

That was Peter Thorneycroft, who was then the shadow Attorney-General. He was the Member of Parliament for Monmouth, so that will be of interest to this hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies). His party had a different view of such things in those days, but I will come to that later.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) mentioned cross-border issues.

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

On that point, my constituents are in the opposite position to those of the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson): they live in England, but many use public services in Wales, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies). Some of them live in England, and have their general practitioner in England, but are registered in Wales. They are subject to the Welsh national health service, the policies of which are set by the Welsh Assembly Government, but they have no democratic say at all about those policies.

[Paul Murphy]

Of course they do not, but they sometimes get the benefit. There was a time when people from the Minister’s constituency were able to come to Chepstow to claim free prescriptions, although I believe that that has been stopped. I agree with him that cross-border matters are particularly complicated in our part of England and Wales. It is not quite the same on the Scottish border, because very few people live alongside it. However, on the Welsh border, in both the south and the north, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn referred, it is an issue, and the Minister also makes that point. If we start trying to disentangle all of this, we would get into an awful muddle as to who does what, and who votes on what.

Policies developed in England have implications for the rest of the United Kingdom. Look at student fees, for example. When we are elected, we are elected as MPs for our constituencies, but we are also elected to represent the UK as a whole. We represent the UK in the sense that we take decisions that affect the whole of the UK, not just our own constituencies. Also, who is to define what is an English issue? I rather fancy that that would put the Speaker of the House of Commons in a difficult position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Field]

However much the hon. Gentleman would like to tempt me in that direction, I will not go down that path as it does not apply to today’s debate. However, he makes a serious point. In many ways, devolution was the saving of the Conservative party in Wales in the immediate aftermath of 1997, or at least after 1999 with the Welsh Assembly elections. We now have a stalwart group of Welsh MPs, roughly one quarter of whom are present today—that is until the boundaries change. [Laughter.] I will not be unkind to my colleagues. The Minister is blanching at the prospect of a cross-border Welsh-English seat if some people have their way.

[Mr Harper]

That is not possible.

[Mr Field]

Thankfully, I do not think it is possible with the legislation that has been carefully put into place.

I know that other hon. Members wish to speak, so I will say just a few words about what I consider would be the ideal situation. It is very much a pipe dream and an ideal. I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) said in his earlier contribution. We need to move towards the idea of an English Parliament. We do not need a whole lot more politicians—I hasten to add—but I would like to see all parts of the United Kingdom come under a federal umbrella, with identical powers for the Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and English Parliaments. There would also be the United Kingdom Parliament into which Members of the constituent parts would organise themselves on a pro rata basis. The United Kingdom Parliament would look at bigger strategic economic issues such as foreign affairs and defence. Many things that are already taken for granted in Wales and Scotland, such as policies on transport, health and a whole range of issues that are dealt with through the Assembly or the Scottish Parliament, would be tackled at national level. That is important because a huge amount of resentment is building up in England about what is seen as an unfair arrangement. Having a Conservative-led Government has probably helped to assuage that in the short term, but I fear that sense of resentment will become stronger as we go forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I have a few more points to make. We could see a vast multiplication in the number of Bills, with many more Second Readings of minor Bills that affected only specific parts of the country. I suppose one could then say that if a piece of legislation was not on a devolved matter but affected only Wales, only Welsh MPs should be able to vote on it. That is the logic of the argument of those who say that English legislation should be voted on only by English MPs. The danger is the effect on Government; a complicated Venn diagram would be needed to show who are the Government on any particular subject. We would have England-only legislation; England and Wales-only legislation; England, Wales and Scotland legislation; and England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland legislation, and a different set of people would be voting on each sort. There would be at least five versions of the Government of the United Kingdom. That is potentially problematic and could be dangerous.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen wisely referred to Welsh peers. Would one suddenly decide that Welsh peers should not be able to vote? How does one decide what constitutes a Welsh peer? It is difficult enough deciding what nationality the Secretary of State for Wales is. At a recent reception held at the Foreign Office, I gather that the Secretary of State for Wales made a little speech. As the Bahraini ambassador was saying thank you, he said, “It’s great finally to discover, Cheryl, after all the years that I’ve known you, that you’re Welsh”—and he is a diplomat.

[Mr Harper]

She is Welsh.

[Chris Bryant]

She was not clear about it until she became Secretary of State for Wales. The final point is the effect on Parliament. There have been times when there have been different categories of Members of Parliament. In particular, the burgesses and knights of the 13th century occasionally sat separately because they were able to secure different grants from the Crown. However, that has not happened since the 13th century. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen said—others have alluded to this—no other country in the world has different categories of Members of Parliament. The confusion and difficulty that such a system would lead to would be very dramatic.

The Government have said that they will set up a commission to consider the issue. I hope that that commission will be as interesting as the one that was set up in relation to the Human Rights Act 1998. Many of us would like to buy tickets to sit in and watch those meetings, as there are people on it with completely and utterly diametrically opposed views. When the Minister clarifies what he is doing about the commission, which the Secretary of State for Wales has said will be in place by the end of this year, I hope that he will assure us that people with diametrically opposed views will be on it, so that we see absolutely no progress on the matter.

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

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) on securing the debate, as it allows us to kick around some of the issues. However, the debate was, as I suspected it would be when I saw the cast of characters in front of me, a little repetitious of the debate that we had on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. Perhaps that does not apply to the right hon. Gentleman, but it certainly does to one or two others.

The history of the issue goes back a long way. I will not repeat it, as the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) did at least mention Scotland; he referred to the origins of the West Lothian question, and the fact that the phrase was coined by the then Member of Parliament for that constituency. Given the cast of characters here today, and the fact that Wales is so well represented, I am tempted to use the description that my right hon. Friend, the very excellent Secretary of State for Wales, has sometimes used, and to call it the West Clwydian question.

I should just say to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that my hon. Friends the Members for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), and for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), had said that they were not able to stay for the whole debate because they were serving on Select Committees. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes is on the Health Committee, and my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth does an excellent job chairing the Welsh Affairs Committee.

[Chris Bryant]

How do you know?

[Mr Harper]

I hear reports of his excellent chairmanship. The right hon. Member for Torfaen talked about the commission, and I will come to that at the end of my remarks. A number of Members talked about the settlement that we reached in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. As I have said many times, it was not partisan; it was about treating every single part of the United Kingdom in the same way to ensure that each had the exact number of seats for the number of electors they have. There were many who said that because of devolution, we should ensure that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had fewer seats in this House per head of the electorate, but that was something that the Government did not want to do; we wanted to ensure that we treated each part of the United Kingdom—Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England—in exactly the same way, and that is what we have done in legislation. We have been very fair and even-handed.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the Welsh Grand Committee. He should be aware that the hon. Member for Rhondda thinks that the Welsh Grand Committee is a Welsh grandstanding Committee. When we were debating the Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill in the House of Commons, the hon. Member for Rhondda said:

“The truth is that, all too often, the Welsh Grand Committee has been a pretty futile body.”—[Official Report, 11 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 638.]

Given that that is the view of Labour’s official spokesman, I am amazed that hon. Members made so much fuss about whether the Welsh Grand Committee could discuss the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. I drew the remarks of the hon. Member for Rhondda to the attention of the Secretary of State, and very interesting she found them.

[Ian Lucas]

The point is simply that Welsh MPs did not have the opportunity to discuss the issues, or any of the amendments, in the main Chamber. It would not have been difficult for the Secretary of State for Wales to have allowed a Welsh Grand Committee to take place, so that we could discuss the issues.

[Mr Harper]

I sat through all the debates on the 2011 Act, and of the 40 MPs who spoke on Second Reading, a large number were Welsh Members of Parliament. Although we did not have as long to spend on the groups of amendments as we would have liked, we spent a long time talking about the Bill and its effects on Wales. Welsh MPs spoke for a great deal of time, and I had tremendous pleasure in listening to the arguments that they put forward.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) drew our attention to the over-representation of Wales. That is something that many people in England—not Conservative Members of Parliament but members of the public in England—resented, and we sorted that out in the 2011 Act. We have dealt with every member of the United Kingdom in exactly the same way and treated every part fairly.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I will not give way, because I have only five minutes to deal with all the issues that have been raised. The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who is no longer in his place, referred to the fact that a number of his constituents living in Wales use English public services. He said that he should have a say in those services. The point that I made in my intervention was that many of my constituents have to use public services, such as the health service, in Wales. They have no say over how those are set up, because those policy decisions are made by the Welsh Assembly Government.

[Mr David]

Does the Minister not recognise that an extremely important cross-border protocol is in place, which directly influences what happens in Wales and England?

[Mr Harper]

In my experience as a constituency MP, the protocol does not work well. The cross-border issues, which, as the right hon. Member for Torfaen said, are much more important between England and Wales than they are between England and Scotland because of the way in which the population is distributed, were not very well thought through when the devolution settlement was arrived at. Many things do not work very well across borders. The experience of my constituents is that the English-Welsh border has become more of a real barrier since devolution than it was before. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) referred to that issue when he asked whether English MPs knew what they were voting for. I am not sure that they did, because the cross-border issues were not very well thought through.

The right hon. Member for Torfaen asked—at least he was fair enough to ask the question; one or two other Members put it as a statement—whether the Conservative party was still a Unionist party. It absolutely is; it is the Conservative and Unionist party. We were the only party that contested seats in all four parts of the United Kingdom. It is fair to say that our experience of contesting seats in Northern Ireland did not go as well as we had hoped, but we did contest seats in all four parts. We are a Unionist party, and we want to keep the Union together. Indeed, that is why we want to tackle the West Lothian question. Some commentators believe that any threat or damage to the United Kingdom would stem from the resentment of English voters—not MPs—so it is important to deal with the issues to keep the United Kingdom together.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster pointed out what would happen if we had a United Kingdom Government who did not have a majority in England but insisted on governing as if they did. Given that we have a devolution settlement in Wales and Scotland, the resentment that would ensue could have the effect that the right hon. Member for Torfaen fears.

This debate shows the complexity of the issue. A number of Members leapt into potential solutions, mainly focusing on what the Conservative party had set out before the election. Of course, the two coalition parties come at the issue from different angles. Unusually, my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster may find the Liberal Democrat federal solution more to his liking. The Conservative party had a different approach. Our agreed solution is to get the commission to examine the issue so that we can try to reach a thoughtful and sensible conclusion. We are thinking about the composition, scope and remit of that commission. Once we have finished setting that out, we will announce it to the House.

[Chris Bryant]

This year?

[Mr Harper]

Yes, this year. I have experience of setting up such a commission; in a written statement, I announced the very excellent commission on a Bill of Rights, which has a very well-qualified team of people. It will make considerable progress on that issue and on reform of the European Court.

We will announce the composition of the commission. The right hon. Member for Torfaen referred to the importance of the House of Lords; we will shortly publish our proposals and a draft Bill on House of Lords reform. Once they are published, we will set out our plans for the commission on the West Lothian question. This was an important debate that highlighted the complexities and challenges of the problem, and for that the right hon. Gentleman should be thanked.

United Kingdom Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Friday 18th March 2011 Commons Chamber

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

So far, my hon. Friend has concentrated his speech largely on the EU and the ECHR. However, I would like to pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley). Does my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) intend to address clause 3(b), which talks not only about European institutions, but about international law and all of Britain’s other treaty and international obligations, which would be affected quite dramatically by the Bill?

[Mr Chope]

Frankly, I was not going to, but if my hon. Friend is going to use clause 3(b) as a justification for not supporting my Bill, and if he thinks that it should be excluded and that the ambit of the Bill is too wide, I will allow him to dilate on that at length, if need be, during his remarks. I am a perfectly reasonable person, and if he thinks that clause 3(b) goes too far, I might be amenable to an amendment to delete it.

United Kingdom Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Friday 18th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Cash]

I am referring directly to the Minister to ask whether he will respond to a specific point made by the Prime Minister when he was Leader of the Opposition, in a speech to the Centre for Policy Studies in 2005 on the repatriation of powers. He stated that it was imperative to ensure British competitiveness by repatriating social and employment legislation. That has now apparently been directly contradicted by his boss, the Deputy Prime Minister, who has said that we will not take any so-called backward steps by repatriating powers. The measures involved include the working time directive and other matters that are absolutely essential to the growth that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be addressing next week in the Budget.

I know that the Minister has a job to do, and I have no doubt that there are moments when that is somewhat unpalatable, but the bottom line is that we are far more interested in the jobs of the British people than in whether a few lines in the coalition agreement override the commitment that was made not only in our manifesto but in statements by the then Leader of the Opposition that we would repatriate social and employment legislation. There is no getting round this, and I want an answer to my question. I am sure that the House does, too.

[Mr Harper]

I can give my hon. Friend that answer now. We did indeed put a number of proposals before the British people, and we did seek a mandate for them. It will not have escaped his notice, however, that we did not win the general election outright, and that we therefore formed a coalition—[Interruption.] He raises his eyebrows, but that is a fact. Earlier, he specifically said that we had sought a mandate for certain things. We did indeed seek such a mandate, but I must draw his attention to the fact that we did not get that mandate. The coalition then set out its policies very clearly in its programme for government.

[Mr Cash]

I hear what the Minister says, but I am afraid I remain unconvinced, not least because the first priority must be to ensure that we achieve growth. Reducing the deficit is supposed to be the fulcrum of the coalition Government’s proposals, but we cannot do that without increasing growth, and we cannot increase growth without reducing the burden of over-regulation, much of which comes from the European Union and has the effect of strangulating British business.

This is not exactly rocket science; it is completely obvious. I understand the Government’s dilemma, but I am certain that, in the national interest, we need to tackle the problem. That is why the formula to which I have referred remains embedded in the Bill. I stress the necessity for Government policy to shift the burden on British business to give it the oxygen it needs. We cannot trade with the European Union when most of its member states, apart from Germany, are in a parlous state of low growth. Many of the countries are virtually bankrupt. It would be completely self-defeating to continue to make all these treaties and pacts on European economic governance and competitiveness in defiance of the fact that Europe is suffering from very low growth.

We need to relieve the burden on small and medium-sized businesses in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe to ensure that we can achieve the growth that we need. That is a perfectly reasonable proposition, and it should not get in the way of the overall objectives of the coalition. Unfortunately, however, it appears that it does, because the Government keep on saying that they will not repatriate these powers. I find it astonishing that we are working against the national interest in this way, rather than working for it. Statements by the Deputy Prime Minister in this context have been extremely unhelpful, but I gather that the Minister is going to associate himself with those remarks and not attempt to give any sustenance to those of us who want the repatriation of powers through this Bill.

My arguments apply not only on the business front—[Interruption.] I see some hon. Members shaking their heads, but this country is in a parlous condition at the moment, and common sense ought to prevail. It is not asking a huge amount to ensure that we have a thriving business community. The situation would be emphatically improved if we were to adopt the policy that I am proposing, and have been proposing for many years. As I said before the interruption for the Prime Minister’s statement, that policy was formally agreed by us in the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill in 2006 when we were in opposition.

[Mr Harper]

I would like to ask my hon. Friend a question. He drew attention to the repatriation of powers and spoke of using the mechanisms of the Bill to achieve that. Although I do not agree with it, I could understand the argument that the Bill would stop us giving away more powers to the European Union, but what mechanism in it would enable us to get back powers that have already been given away?

[Mr Cash]

The use of the sovereignty of Parliament to pass an Act notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972, which is inherent in the Bill. The Minister might recall that in opening my remarks, I specifically stated that I had a clause in mind that would put it beyond any doubt that the courts would be obliged to give effect to, for example, what the then Opposition properly did when they voted for my amendment to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

We should not be arguing about this. I find it astonishing that I should have to raise the matter in a debate. For a Minister to question whether my remarks are valid in one respect or another is again astonishing. I cannot believe it: I know the Minister’s business background; I know he understands the issues; I know perfectly well that he is caught on the horns of a dilemma. I believe that he would personally love to see the repatriation of powers—and I am sure his constituents would, as well. I am afraid, however, that it will do no good if he offers resistance to my simple, straightforward and common-sense proposals. This involves making adjustments to European Community law and requiring the judiciary to give effect to the latest inconsistent Act. I should not have to repeat myself; it is terribly obvious. It is all so simple that I cannot believe that the Minister would want to offer any kind of resistance to the proposition.

Let me provide a few examples—some from the business environment, some from elsewhere—from the massive tsunami of European law. I have already mentioned the working time directive, which is coming up for consideration by the European Scrutiny Committee. We recommended that proposals relating to it should be debated in the House, so we do not need to debate it immediately. I will say unequivocally, however, that the working time directive is causing a great deal of damage to small businesses. There are also questions in the pipeline relating to waste electrical and electronic equipment, which is a matter of concern to a number of manufacturers and to people in the waste disposal business.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I do not think I will quite match the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for brevity. He will be pleased to learn that I am not going to go through all the reasons why the Government oppose the Bill and will oppose it if it is pressed to a vote, but I will touch on a number of them. My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) got to the heart of the argument at the beginning of the debate when he discussed clause 1 and its reaffirmation of sovereignty. As he said, if this is indeed a sovereign Parliament, as we all believe it is, it does not need to reaffirm its sovereignty, but if it is not a sovereign Parliament, reaffirming its sovereignty is of no consequence.

My hon. Friend also made the point—I have been surprised that other Members have not discussed this—that this is not a Bill about the European Union. As clause 3(b) makes clear, it touches on not only our European commitments, but all the commitments we have made in all the treaties we have signed. I shall go on to discuss what the Prime Minister said earlier about our membership of the United Nations, which would be affected if the Bill became law.

[Henry Smith]

My hon. Friend is of course right that this country is a member of a number of international bodies, including the European Union, the United Nations and NATO, but so are other independent sovereign nations. I do not think there would be any suggestion that the United States compromises its sovereignty by its membership of the United Nations.

[Mr Harper]

I will not dwell on that now, if my hon. Friend will forgive me. I will come to it later in my remarks, and he will be free to intervene on me then.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and several others touched on issues such as the European Union Bill, particularly the debate that we had on clause 18; the issue of prisoner voting, which my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) mentioned; and our relationship with the European convention on human rights, including the role of the Court. Those are all important.

There is no doubt that the sovereignty of Parliament lies at the heart of our constitution as one of our fundamental underpinnings. Since the time of the Bill of Rights in 1689, no one has seriously challenged the notion that Parliament is the ultimate arbiter of the powers of the Executive. Indeed, Parliament determined who the Executive should be: it intervened in the line of succession to the Crown and altered it. I will not go into the various changes to the line of succession, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) dwelled on that. I was disappointed that he did not feel the urge to set out his views on those historical events in more detail, and probably on a much better informed basis, than I would be able to.

It may be surprising to some that the adoption of parliamentary sovereignty is nowhere set out in authoritative form. The Bill sets out sovereignty without attempting to define it in any way in a piece of primary legislation. That would mean, in effect, that the courts would then be invited to define what we meant by sovereignty, to define what “reaffirming” meant, and to do a number of other things. The Bill would therefore take us down a dangerous road that would undermine the proposition of parliamentary sovereignty instead of defending it.

[Mr Cash]

I merely add that the most distinguished authority on the question of parliamentary sovereignty, Professor Jeffrey Goldsworthy, has indicated that clause 1 is the best way to deal with the situation with which we are faced. I have no idea where the legal advice that the Minister is getting comes from. If his advice comes from the same source as that of those who wrote the explanatory notes for the European Union Bill, the fact they have had to go into a steep reverse on this issue as a result of our Committee’s report indicates that the quality of the advice is appalling, and, I am glad to say, that the Minister’s comments are unnecessary and wrong.

[Mr Harper]

My remarks are clearly not unnecessary, because it is necessary to set out the Government’s view. I suspect that my hon. Friend and I will not see eye to eye on everything; indeed, on quite a lot, particularly regarding these issues. Of course, he is entitled to his view, but I happen to disagree with him.

It is worth saying that in the debate in Committee of the whole House on clause 18 of the European Union Bill—my hon. Friend has referred to the evidence given in the European Scrutiny Committee, which he chairs—it was specifically made clear that it was not intended to be a general clause setting out the origin of parliamentary sovereignty; rather, it sets out how EU law gets its place in the UK legal order, which is by Acts of this Parliament. That was the purpose of the clause, and it did it very well. The EU Bill makes it very clear that directly applicable or directly effective EU law had status in the UK only because it was granted that status by an Act of the UK Parliament. I think that that was a helpful thing to do. As the hon. Member for Rhondda pointed out, that was agreed to by this House. Those arguments will be had at the other end of the building, and I hope that in due course that Bill will be passed by this sovereign Parliament.

[Mr Cash]

The fact that the Government have changed the explanatory notes is self-evident. Will the Minister put it on the record that he at least agrees that they were changed, even if he is not prepared to make any other admission?

[Mr Harper]

I believe that my hon. Friend is correct in saying that the explanatory notes have changed, so I am of course happy to agree on that fact. There are still matters of debate, but you will be pleased to know that I will not repeat those, Mr Deputy Speaker, because this is not a debate on the European Union Bill. I want to touch on issues other than the European Union because the Bill before us goes much wider, and there are other reasons why it should be opposed by Members.

[Mr Bone]

May I ask the Conservative Minister whether he stood on a manifesto at the last election that pledged that a United Kingdom parliamentary sovereignty Bill would be introduced if he was a member of the next Government? Has he changed his position?

[Mr Harper]

I dealt with that point when I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash). Conservative Members stood on a manifesto that made a number of commitments. Indeed, he put it quite well in saying that we sought from the British people a mandate to do certain things. As I pointed out to my hon. Friends, much to our disappointment we did not get that mandate from the British people to the extent that we had hoped. We fell short, and that is why we formed a coalition Government. The coalition Government have set out our agreed programme. It contains quite a lot of what we wanted to do in our manifesto, and some of what the Liberal Democrats wanted to do in theirs, but we were not able to agree on all of it. The British people failed to give us that mandate so we are not able to do everything that we set out in our manifesto. That is disappointing—I find it disappointing and my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) finds it disappointing. However, we are democrats and we have to live with the decisions of the British people.

[Mr Bone]

Look, there are not very many people here. People have gone home and nobody is really listening. Why does the Minister not give his own personal view rather than the coalition view on whether the United Kingdom Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill would be a good thing?

[Mr Harper]

As my hon. Friend knows, I am here to set out clearly what the Government’s view is. I would never say, just because there may not be many Members present in the Chamber, that words spoken in this House are not heard far and wide. We should be very careful about what we say and should weigh our words carefully, particularly when speaking in a Chamber of a sovereign Parliament.

I hesitate to say this because I am sure that it will provoke my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, but I think it is worth saying that the Minister for Europe dealt with the issue of sovereignty in detail in relation to clause 18 of the European Union Bill in this House and in the European Scrutiny Committee. He said that the Government’s view was that an amendment that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone tabled, which was similar to what is in this Bill, would have invited exactly the sort of speculative consideration by judges that my hon. Friend feared. It is the Government’s view that the approach in this Bill would make things worse rather than better.

[Mr Cash]

The problem for this Minister and the Minister for Europe is that the Bill is not in law and we are already being affected by the assertions of certain members of the Supreme Court that the sovereignty of Parliament is not absolute. If it were not for that, there would not be a problem. This is a recent development. It is precisely because of the Court’s assertions of judicial supremacy that we are required to retaliate and to make our position clear through a simple declaration such as that in clause 1, just to make it absolutely certain.

[Mr Harper]

The flaw in that argument is that to put into an Act of Parliament the language in clause 1 would invite exactly the problem that my hon. Friend is concerned about. Because it would be in a statute that judges would have to interpret, it would invite them to start defining “sovereignty” and interpreting what Parliament meant by the words in the Bill. I do not think that is very helpful.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Harper]

I will give way once more on this point, then I will make some progress.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, because this point is tremendously important and may, if he is correct, point to a fatal flaw in the Bill. I hope that he will deal with it carefully and precisely. I do not understand the idea that things that are in statute are justiciable but things that are not in statute are not. It seems to me that the judges can interpret the law of the land in the round, not just statutes. Will he focus on that point?

[Mr Harper]

The reason that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone gave for having the Bill and for reaffirming the sovereignty of Parliament was the risk that judges might erode the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty by setting out some new, autonomous legal order in which EU law had authority in the UK regardless of whether Parliament continued to give it that authority. We had that debate on the European Union Bill, and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe made it quite clear that so far our judges have done nothing of the sort. In fact, they have had arguments put before them inviting them to take that stance and have specifically rejected them. That was why, in that Bill, which my hon. Friend and a number of other Members have talked about, we specifically set out that EU law had effect in this country only because it was given that effect by Acts passed by this Parliament. We did not think it was helpful—quite the reverse—to have a general sovereignty clause, which is what this Bill would introduce.

It is worth discussing one or two wider issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West was right when he drew attention to the fact that under clause 3(b), the Bill covers not just the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights but any rule of international law at all. It provides that no Minister of the Crown is to

“make or implement any legal instrument which…is inconsistent with this Act”,

in other words which affects the sovereignty of this Parliament. That seems a very wide term, including both domestic legal instruments and instruments that are binding in international law.

The Bill also appears to extend to any instrument, including any treaty, that the UK will make or implement, or has ever made or implemented. It appears that it would act with retrospective effect. It seems to me that that is quite deliberate given the words in clause 3 stating that it

“shall have effect and shall be construed as having effect and deemed at all times to have had effect”.

I shall come back to that in a moment.

I do not believe the Bill takes any notice of the changes that were made to the rules for ratifying treaties that were introduced in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which provides a number of tests and procedures for ratification that improve parliamentary involvement in the process. For example, when a Minister signs a treaty that does not come into force upon signature and to which domestic procedures concerning EU law do not apply, it may not be ratified unless it is laid before Parliament for a period of 21 days and neither House of Parliament passes a resolution objecting to it. If the House passes such a resolution, a Minister must lay a further explanation before the House, which may vote again within a further 21 days.

Only in exceptional circumstances may a treaty be ratified without the agreement of this House, and a Minister cannot override a decision of the House that it should not be ratified. If the Bill became law, what would happen if Parliament did not object to the ratification of a treaty but it was subsequently concluded that it was inconsistent with the Bill? What effect would that have on the sovereignty of Parliament?

I argue that the Bill is rather dangerous because of the effect that it would have on how we conduct international relations. It would make it impossible for us to participate in a number of organisations—for example, we belong to the United Nations and have signed a range of treaties connected with it. I listened closely to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said this morning about the Security Council resolution. He pointed out the wide authorisation that it gives us and other members of the international community to act but he also explained that it places clear limits on what we can do. If the Bill were in force, it would not allow us to enter into agreements that limit what Parliament can do unless we held a referendum. We could not sign up to any international treaty with which we had engaged that somehow constrained our behaviour, as most do, unless we held a referendum.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West highlighted the Bill that we discussed earlier, which encountered no opposition, on the wreck removal convention. If we accepted the measure that we are discussing, we would pass primary legislation to hold a referendum on whether the British people should support the wreck removal convention. That would not be welcome.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend may have found a fatal flaw in the Bill, and I therefore ask him to consider it further. However, an EU rule has effect in this country above UK legislation, subject to the 1972 Act. That is not the case with agreements made in the United Nations or under other treaty conventions, which Her Majesty’s Government can abrogate at their own will.

[Mr Harper]

My point, which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe made when we debated the European Union Bill, is that EU law has primacy in this country only because Parliament has passed legislation to say so. The Government will not do it, but it is open to Parliament to change or repeal the Act so that EU law does not have primacy. It is possible, although we are not going to do it. That is the flaw in the argument.

Clause 4 is another good reason for objecting to the Bill because it purports to bind future Parliaments. It states that a Bill passed in this Parliament cannot be amended without the consent of the people in a referendum. An important aspect of parliamentary sovereignty is that Parliament may enact or repeal any legislation it pleases, and it cannot bind its successors. Clause 4 undermines that. It also states:

“No Bill shall be presented to Her Majesty the Queen for her Royal Assent which contravenes this Act”,

but is not clear who would determine whether a Bill contravenes “this Act”. It would clearly have to be the courts, which would then be engaged in assessing whether Parliament had properly passed Bills and whether Bills should have received Royal Assent before a referendum had taken place. That invites courts to have much more power.

[Mr Bone]

The Parliamentary Secretary seems to be making specific points, which are more relevant to Committee. This is a Second Reading debate about the principle and we should not be discussing the detail. He should do that in Committee with us.

[Mr Harper]

I disagree. A disappointing aspect of the debate—I was disappointed even if no one else was—is that, in their comprehensive speeches, my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for Stone spent much time on some issues, but little time on the actual Bill. I thought it was important to draw the House’s attention to the consequences of passing the measure and why the Government will oppose it if it is pressed to a Division.

The debate was helpful but the Government have concluded that, rather than strengthening and upholding parliamentary sovereignty, the Bill would undermine it for the reasons that I and others have set out. I therefore urge my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch to withdraw it. If he does not and he tests the House’s opinion, I urge hon. Members to oppose it.