Business of the House

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Of course the banks, particularly those in which the Government have a substantial stake, should help to promote recovery by lending to small businesses that have worthwhile propositions. I am not sure that there is a total contradiction between rebuilding the balance sheets on the one hand and lending to small businesses on the other. If one has a robust balance sheet, it should be possible to make more provision for lending.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

It is quite clear that the comprehensive spending review will mean massive consequential cuts for the funding of the Scottish Government. We understand that a dirty deal has been done between the Conservatives and their new Scottish National party allies to postpone those cuts for one year. What will the Leader of the House do to ensure that the figures are published so that people will know what the double-whammy cuts will be in the second year, and how will they be scrutinised by the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs or the Scottish Grand Committee?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman must await the statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer next Wednesday. Perhaps he will catch your eye, Mr Speaker, and ask questions about the consequences for Scotland of the overall settlement in the UK.

Business of the House

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

We shall debate the Finance Bill in the coming week, but I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that, against the background of the very disappointing news that he has outlined, some of the measures in the Budget are designed to help manufacturing industry, such as the reduction in corporation tax over the next few years, which is designed to promote inward investment. I hope that those policies will result in a turnaround in the unemployment position in his constituency.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House press the Health Secretary and other Ministers responsible to come to the House and create a debate on the strategy to deal with obesity in this country? This is not just a question for England, because when I go around my constituency I am shocked by the amount of obesity that I see. We are all being abandoned by the Health Secretary and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, because they will not ban trans fats from processed food. They appear to have abandoned us to the processed food industry by abandoning the strategy against obesity in England. It is a very important matter because it is damaging the health of our constituents’ children and bringing early death to our constituents.

[Sir George Young]

Obesity is an important issue, although, happily, it is not one that either the hon. Gentleman or I would appear to suffer from. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has made it clear that, where possible, he wants to work with the industry rather than against it. That is the background to the announcements that he has just made. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, however, that this is an issue that, if possible, we should find time to debate. If we cannot, there will be an opportunity to raise it during Health questions.

Business of the House

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. I, too, yesterday met constituents who either had Huntington’s disease or who were caring for people with Huntington’s disease. It brought home to all Members of the House who had contact with those people how difficult the disease is to manage. It is a degenerative disease with a genetic component that imposes a great deal of stress both on those who contract it and those who care for them. I know that there are clear issues about future research and the sort of support that can be given at the point of diagnosis and the point of management in GP practices and elsewhere in order to help. I understand that an all-party parliamentary group on Huntington’s disease has been established and that is a welcome step forward. I cannot promise my hon. Friend a debate in the next two weeks, I am afraid, but he might care to apply for an Adjournment debate or a Westminster Hall debate on this important subject.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

May I press the Deputy Leader of the House to get his master, the Leader of the House, to come to the House and give the statement that he promised two weeks ago on progress on setting up the European Scrutiny Committee, and to scotch the rumour that is going about that Ministers intend to vote in the 1922 committee’s election of the Conservative chair of that committee? I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will say that even the gelded Liberals would not stand for the Government’s trying to elect a Back-Bench committee’s chairman.

[Mr Heath]

Happily, I have no responsibility whatsoever for what happens in the 1922 committee and that is no doubt a situation that will continue. The important issue is the setting up of the Select Committees, including the European Scrutiny Committee, and I understand the urgency of that. I was very pleased that the motion was passed by the House last night to make the small amendments to the number of members on Committees. That means that the Committee of Selection can now proceed in good order to make appointments to Committees. We should have all the Committees of the House up and running as soon as possible.

Business of the House

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

May I return the compliment and suggest that the Opposition use one of their Opposition days to explain where they would have found the £50 billion cuts that were factored into their pre-election statements? They never told us where those cuts would come from, and they would have included some £18 billion of cuts to the capital programme. They said that they would tell us after the election where they would find those cuts, and the time is now ripe.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House arrange for someone from the Government to come here and tell us why they are afraid of scrutiny of their behaviour in Europe and why they have not set up the European Scrutiny Committee, which was the first Committee set up in the last Parliament by the previous Government? Are they afraid of the Euroscepticism generated on their Benches when they were in pre-election mode, or are they afraid of the ESC, which of course won an inquisitor of the year award when we had a Labour Government and it had a Labour Chair?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the work that he has done on the ESC. I am aware that documents continue to arrive from Europe that need scrutiny and that, at the moment, there is no ESC. There is no conspiracy along the lines that he suggests. Urgent discussions are taking place along the usual channels, and I hope that it will not be too long before we can establish the ESC. I am sure that whoever chairs it will do a fantastic job.

Dissolution of Parliament

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for making this the subject of the first debate of the Adjournment process.

I do not believe that this situation was caused by euphoria but, perhaps, by panic when the two parties found that they could not trust themselves by having the normal system of a simple majority. Before I came to this House, I taught government and political systems. I told my students that the House of Commons was based on the support of a majority of MPs, and that that was fundamental to our process, which was not like the systems that existed in other countries that were designed for coalitions. That has been the way in which our Governments could be held to account, and so they have been up until this time—until the introduction of the 55% concept, which my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) has called the Mugabe clause.

Much has been made of the existence of other systems—Slovenia was mentioned earlier—and particularly the system in the Scottish Parliament, where 66% is required for its dissolution. The difference is that that happened after almost 20 years of debate, with a constitutional convention, a great deal of study by Scottish constitutional experts, and advice on how to design a system whereby the Parliament could not have a majority held by one party. It is therefore not a good comparator; nevertheless, it has been made much of by my Liberal Democrat colleagues in the coalition in Scotland.

That system was passed through an Act of Parliament here—the Scotland Act 1998—after great debate and scrutiny through a proper system of constitutional Committees in this House. It was designed to prevent any party from having a majority. It therefore had to bolster the Parliament as constituted so that it could run for its fixed term of four years. There is no similar proposal, I understand, for the Commons to bring in a proportional system. AV has been talked about in relation to a referendum, but there has been no proposal to bring in proportionality on the same basis as in Scotland.

Let me explain the system simply. If a party’s constituency Members win all the seats in a region, all the regional list Members are elected from the other parties. The party that elects all the first-past-the-post Members, and which therefore clearly has the popular vote of the people of the region, gets no further Members of the Scottish Parliament. The result is either a coalition, as existed between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party for two Parliaments in Scotland, or a minority Government, as we have at the moment. I believe that the Scottish National party Government are doing great damage to Scotland, mainly because they are supported on a supply basis—I do not know about a confidence basis—by the Conservatives in the Scottish Parliament. A minority Government run for four years unless two thirds of the Parliament votes to get rid of them. The system is completely different and not really comparable with the system that we are discussing.

The parties in the UK Parliament went to the people of this country and asked for a majority, and they failed to get one. I agree with the hon. Member for Christchurch that that strengthened this Parliament. It was not the decision of the people of the UK to have a strong Government bolstered by a manipulation of the constitution such as the proposed 55% rule. I put it to the House that breaching the control of the UK Parliament through anything other than a simple majority is to betray the democratic credibility of the House and the electoral process in which the people have just voted. It is a shameful act, so I have a question for the Deputy Leader of the House: are there no depths to which the Liberal Democrats will not stoop to hang on to their tainted share of power?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

It is a clear commitment on the part of this Government that we wish to maintain this Parliament and the Government over a five-year period. That is our determination, and I have no difficulty in saying that.

I return to what will happen in the event of a vote of no confidence, because it is crucial. There would then be two possible outcomes. If the Government lost a vote of confidence, they would no longer be the Government—under our conventions in this House and in common with other political systems around the country. Then another party or coalition of parties might be able to form a Government from within the existing House of Commons. That is not the most unusual thing in the world, because it happens in many other systems that have a fixed-term Parliament. It also happens within our present system if the Government lose a vote of no confidence and it is apparent to the monarch that there is an alternative Government or coalition in the House.

If no one can form a Government that has the confidence of the House, Parliament will be dissolved. Irrespective of other circumstances, if the Government lose a vote of confidence and there is no prospect of stable government, another election is inevitable.

[Michael Connarty]

My problem is that, in the situation that the hon. Gentleman is describing, he is relying on conventions and an unwritten constitution. He is about to introduce a part of a written constitution for the first time stating that a 55% majority is required to dissolve Parliament. The parallel with Scotland is quite clear. A minority Government in Scotland can lose confidence votes and remain, because they cannot be dissolved if they do not wish to go, unless 66% of Members vote for it. That was discussed over decades and is legislation in the Scotland Act 1998. Unless he is proposing to introduce more written constitutional elements stating what he has just said about convention, his word is worth nothing.

[Mr Heath]

I do not understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. This will be legislation, and he will have the opportunity to make the points that he wishes to make when he sees the text of the legislation. He does not have that in front of him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that I was in the same Lobby voting against those guillotine motions. That is why it is our clear intention not to apply automatic guillotines or automatic programme motions, because we do not believe that to be in the interests of proper consideration in this House. This is the new politics—the new way that we are going to run this House of Commons.

Returning to where a vote of no confidence has taken place, it is extraordinary to suggest that there would be circumstances in which this House would refuse to vote for a Dissolution when it was clear that a Dissolution and a new general election were the only way forward. However, even given that, we are putting forward the automatic Dissolution proposal, as a safeguard that we will make part of the legislation, if no new Prime Minister can be appointed within a certain number of days. It seems to me that that is appropriate.

I know that the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk has said that we cannot make any read-across to the Scottish legislation, but I am afraid that I do not entirely agree with him. One thing in the Scottish legislation is that although a two-thirds majority is required for an early Dissolution, there is a fall-back position, with which he will be familiar, which provides for automatic Dissolution if the First Minister resigns and the successor is not appointed within 28 days. That seems an entirely proper constitutional safeguard, and I am very happy to propose something of that kind for our legislation.

[Michael Connarty]

The hon. Gentleman is correct on the point about resignation, which I did know about, but when a Prime Minister loses a vote of confidence—for example, the First Minister in Scotland—he need not resign. That is the point that I am making. Unless the hon. Gentleman puts it in his Bill that after a vote of confidence is lost the Prime Minister must resign, it is worth nothing.

[Mr Heath]

Let me respectfully suggest that that is the situation at the moment. I am quite prepared to argue on the details of the new legislation, but what I am not prepared to do is argue about the present constitutional position, which is that it is unprecedented for a Prime Minister who has lost a vote of no confidence to fail to resign. We must be absolutely clear that creating constitutional difficulties, which are inherent in our present unwritten constitution, is not a sensible way of debating the new position.

Let us deal with the 55% threshold, because I am not so foolish as not to understand that this is the difficulty that many right hon. and hon. Members have. The Prime Minister has set out the Government’s position clearly—it is there in black and white in the coalition document. We believe that 55% is the right threshold, but it is perfectly open to hon. Members to argue that a different threshold is appropriate.