Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House

Debate between Matt Warman and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Exactly. It seems that the Government have not got the message that they should be accountable to this House. It is of course welcome that they have announced some minor changes—at the Conservative party conference and to the press lobby—on tuition fees and the public sector pay cap. But the problem with decree through press release is that it reduces the ability of this House to ensure that the detail of the volte-face is actually as the House wished.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

On a simple point of fact, the announcement on the public sector pay cap was a written ministerial statement. It is important that we do not pretend otherwise and that a Government who use legitimate procedures are not misrepresented.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Yes, but the suggested tuition fees amendment was not.

The subject of how we challenge statutory instruments is important in the light of our discussions on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. I sat through a lot of those discussions and Government Ministers tried to reassure me time and again—not that they were very reassuring—that we should not worry about processes through the negative procedure. They said that we should not worry about statutory instruments because if the will of the House was clear, the House would have the opportunity to review and rescind, and to ensure that statutory instruments that overstepped the mark would not be allowed on the statute book. However, what we see here is parliamentary jiggery-pokery.