Scotland Bill

Debate between Natascha Engel and Graham Allen

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Natascha Engel)]

That is a point of debate, and we are slightly veering away from the amendment that the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) has tabled. I think we can move on now.

[Mr Allen]

I wish that it were a point of debate, but it is a point of accuracy and I am sorry that the hon. and learned Gentleman cannot accept when he has been inaccurate. I hope he will forgive me for keeping pointing that out to him.

House of Commons Business

Debate between Natascha Engel and Graham Allen

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

It is bad for the reputation of the House, but it is the truth. It is useful to call a spade a spade and to call a Downing street petition a Downing street or Government petition. Let us keep it like that and people will see the response they get from Government and will, through the processes of the House and its individual Members, be able to do something through the House of Commons itself. We cannot change the law for people, but we can bring issues to the attention of the Government. We need that capability to keep the Government honest and to hold them to account when many people see that as the way forward.

The fundamental question is about the separation of powers. We ought to have that, as it would be quite useful and would develop a more pluralistic view of our politics. People might not share that view and might think that we can somehow collaborate beyond merely using the platform and technology that are already there—I am perfectly happy to use that platform and technology to save the House money, as we all want that, and I am prepared to compromise on that alone—but an e-petition site for Parliament should be run by Parliament, not the agency we are meant to be keeping under control and holding to account. It is a contradiction in terms that the very people we should be holding to account will be running our system. I hope that the Procedure Committee will be very clear about that as it considers the issue. We all want to be pally and we all want to have little chats with the Leader of the House, but at the end of the day we either have our own e-petitioning system or we have not. If we have not, let us concede that and admit it clearly.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

My only issue with my hon. Friend’s amendment is that I support the idea that a proposal should be developed by the Procedure Committee and cannot understand for the life of me why he does not submit what he has written in his amendment, much of which I agree with, to that inquiry, rather than tabling it for debate on the Floor of the House today. On that point, does he intend to press it to a vote?

[Mr Allen]

I can guarantee to my hon. Friend that I will make representations and, if I am allowed, I will give evidence to the Procedure Committee on the views held by many people in the House about the independence of the House’s institutions and agencies. I do not see Parliament as a sub-office of Government, a Government Department or an offshoot of Government. It is an independent institution that is legitimately and directly elected by the public, as are we all. The current Government and all Governments of the past cannot claim to be that.

The proposal in motion 3 smacks a little of a tidy-up job. The Government have said, “It is a little inconvenient to get all this stuff coming to No. 10 Downing street. We have to deal with it, so why don’t we push it over to the House of Commons and run the system for them? Then they can take the blame if we fail.” My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) knows more than anybody in this House that if a petition reaches the barrier of 100,000 signatures there is an expectation, which has been deliberately inflated by Government, that it has somehow earned and deserves a debate. It is a difficult to pin down where that idea came from, but it was put out there and that is the assumption. That is why in every newsroom—in The Sun, the Daily Mail and elsewhere—the idea is to reach that barrier of 100,000 signatures on a petition to put pressure on my hon. Friend to grant a debate. There are other ways in which that pressure can be seen and relieved rather than by perverting and twisting the honourable institution that is the petitioning of this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

I agree, and I shall come on to the point about how we direct people to a better way of doing what they want to do. It is risky to give people the idea that by submitting a petition to the House of Commons they are making their demands, only for them not to be met. The Leader of the House said that would be a great advantage, as it would make people think that the process represents progress and is more inclusive, and it would encourage people to use the House of Commons. On the contrary, if we allow the idea to be out there that if a petition reaches 100,000 signatures it somehow deserves a debate, which those horrible people in the House of Commons are preventing, it will lift people only to drop them back down again. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire has some experience of that, but it will be as nothing compared with the expectation that could be built up if we operate the Government’s petitions process rather than having our own based on open and honest rules that do not try to deceive people into thinking that if they write in they will get a debate.

[Natascha Engel]

Perhaps my intervention was not clear. Does my hon. Friend agree, given the content of his amendment, that how the petitioning system works should more appropriately be a matter for the Procedure Committee in considering such proposals? Will he press his amendment to a vote or will he withdraw it?

[Mr Allen]

My hon. Friend is a very powerful person in the House, but she does not yet have the ability to respond to a debate and to accept or not accept the proposals in my amendment. I shall listen carefully to the Deputy Leader of the House’s response. When he accepts most—not all—of the points in the amendment, as he no doubt will, I am sure we will be able to reach an accommodation. Somebody has to stand up and say that the House of Commons is a separate institution. The Government cannot just walk in here and set up a petition system on our behalf when we are perfectly capable of doing it ourselves. As the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) says, we have some excellent and expert people, who do not need to understand the software and the hardware to be in control of a petitioning system. We need to ensure that all those things are in place before we say that it sounds like a great idea to get together and run one petitioning system on behalf of two separate, distinct and independent bodies that are elements of our democracy.

Let me move on to the particulars of my amendment. First, on the subject of Parliament’s having its own site, let me repeat that I am happy for the technology to be shared if it means we can save a little money and can get on with what we are meant to do in Parliament. I would rather that than continuing this move towards Parliament as a theme park, where the sittings of the House get in the way of tourist trips and movies being filmed—the Chamber could have been hired out this afternoon to some Hollywood film company. If we can make a little bit of money by sharing the Government’s platform and technology and can have less of the theme park stuff, we should all be happy about that and could have a little more self-respect about being a legislature.

My second point, which was also touched on by the hon. Member for Broxbourne, concerns Members of this House and their role in the process. It should not be possible, willy-nilly, for a newsroom campaign to get a debate going in the House of Commons. “What are we going to do next week with our House of Commons, lads? Let’s get a few ideas, a few headlines, a cut-out in the newspaper and a debate next week—but on what?” As with the paper petition, the process should take place through a Member of Parliament: I have to stand up at the end of business and make a little speech to get a paper petition in the bag behind the Speaker’s Chair. I own that petition. That is the way to reinforce a representative democracy, rather than have stuff coming in, willy-nilly, from people who cannot sleep, have seen something on late-night TV at 3 am and have got up a petition to try to get a debate in the House of Commons.

I urge members of the public: “use your Member of Parliament. Convince your representative. Get them to put the subject that concerns you before the House.” To me, it is just as valid if one person contacts their Member of Parliament—I am thinking of the elderly lady who I met at the weekend who is trying to find an extra 40 quid so that she is not turfed out of her house because of the bedroom tax—as if somebody down in Wapping decides that we should have a debate on the increase in fuel duty, for example.

Political and Constitutional Reform Committee: Wright Reforms

Debate between Natascha Engel and Graham Allen

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

Had Members of Parliament been allowed to elect the members of a Public Bill Committee, as they should be called, I find it difficult to imagine that colleagues across the House would not have recognised the great talent that was wasted by a process intended to give the Government—in this case the coalition Government, but it happens in every Government—an easy ride as the Bill went through Committee. That is not the way to improve legislation or ensure we do not come back in a year to amend law that was made in haste and without proper expert advice of the sort the hon. Gentleman mentions.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) is in her place because I want to say something about the Backbench Business Committee, which is a substantial achievement of the Wright reforms. It demonstrated, as Wright and members of that committee intended, that Parliament is perfectly capable of maturely and competently running part of its own agenda. Once the children have been given a little responsibility, we can see how good they can be. Perhaps we now need to go further and build on the serious and considered approach that my hon. Friend has been instrumental in achieving—she may want to comment on that.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I was saving my comments for when we discuss e-petitions, but one recommendation in the excellent report published today by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and something that the Backbench Business Committee has really felt the lack of, concerns the presence of members from minority parties. How does my hon. Friend think that recommendation should be brought forward so that we can have full membership from the minority parties on the Backbench Business Committee?

[Mr Allen]

I will gladly give way again to my hon. Friend, who I know wants to make a point about e-petitions. She raises a serious point about the representation of minority parties, which is in a sense an unwitting casualty of the way we decided to elect members to Select Committees. That should be put right, and, to do that, the report makes certain recommendations. One possibility would be a reserve place that the Speaker could nominate to remedy any obvious injustice, but there are many other possibilities. If MPs were allowed to get on with it, we could deal with it ourselves, without the Government, whom after all we are meant to scrutinise, telling us how to do it. Parliament is perfectly capable of resolving the issues she raises.

--- Later in debate ---

[Natascha Engel]

rose—

[Mr Allen]

I will touch briefly—

Wright Committee

Debate between Natascha Engel and Graham Allen

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Allen]

I am conscious of trying to make this new creation both effective and sustainable, and the hon. Gentleman tempts me to stretch the elastic a little. My fear is of breaking that elastic in the first couple of years of an innovative Select Committee, but I think now is the time to reconsider such things. He makes his point wisely and with great passion, as he is known to do.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I am listening to the hon. Members for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who were inaugural members of the Backbench Business Committee and without whose work the Committee would not be what it is today, but Thursdays, even though people think of them as fag-end days, are sitting days—they always have been, and they continue to be so. In fact, even on those days when debates are scheduled that are not on votable motions but are on topics of interest, the Chamber is packed in a way that we have not seen in previous Parliaments. That is because those debates have been chosen by Members themselves, and it is the act of taking responsibility for those debates that means the Chamber is very full and there is always a time limit on speeches.

We still have votable motions, including on Thursdays, and it is down to individual Members to ask for votable motions or general debates. How the Government or the Whips respond to those votable motions is down to them, and it is up to us as Back Benchers to hold them to account for the business that we have voted through Parliament.

[Mr Allen]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. In looking to improve around the margins some of the things that the Backbench Business Committee does, we should not miss the big picture. The Committee has been an incredibly powerful change, it is progress for the House and it gives us great courage and strength when considering what further the House could do. At the time of the recommendation, people were saying, “This is ridiculous. These people will be out of control. They will be doing pet topics. It depends who seizes control of the Committee, and it will be absolute chaos.” Well, people should look at private Members’ Bills if they want to talk about chaos—they are another issue that needs to be resolved and cleaned up. The Backbench Business Committee has proved that the House is capable of executing its own business and agenda responsibly and maturely, and it gives us great faith that that could happen in the proper context of a House business committee.

There are other things that we need to consider, and I have mentioned private Members’ Bills. What a shameful farce it is to talk to members of the public about the process for private Members’ Bills. The process has always been a farce, and it needs to be cleaned up so that the House can proceed with a small number of Bills—perhaps only three or four—that are guaranteed to be given a Second Reading and to go into Committee, if a majority in the House agrees. Such Bills could be voted down if the Government do not like them, but we should end the nonsense of talking stuff out, using procedural tricks and all the other stuff that just brings the House and Members into disrepute. Let us be honest about private Members’ Bills.

There are many other things. Early-day motions are political graffiti. The Wright Committee recommended that a number of motions could be used to secure Members’ debates on the Floor of the House. Again, there would be a small number of occasional debates, but early days could be found so that some credibility is restored to early-day motions, rather than their being used to buy off constituents who have raised a particular issue with their Member of Parliament and feel that signing an early-day motion will change something. Let us actually create a process through which we can change something where there is sufficient cross-party support for an early-day motion.

The Government’s abuse of petitioning also needs to be addressed. The Government have stuck their nose into e-petitioning and have misrepresented what it can do. They have tried to foist the consequences on to the Backbench Business Committee and the legislature. We should send e-petitioning back to the Government and say, “If the Government are petitioned, they must answer and respond.” If people wish to petition and e-petition the House separately asking for a proper debate, the House should take that seriously, but it should not be given a ceiling. Editors in newsrooms tell their journalists they have to pump up the numbers so that they can press the House to have a vote on something that is on their agenda; petitions should be given back to the people. The Government should separate from Parliament on petitioning, and we should address petitions in our own way internally. Hopefully, it will result in a number of debates taking place on which people have genuinely petitioned the House.

We also need to revisit the inadvertent squeeze on minority parties caused by the changes. The Wright Committee proposed that the Speaker be allowed to nominate one person to Select Committees. That power would be used wisely, I am sure, by the incumbent, who would ensure that minority parties were represented where they otherwise would not be.

The question of filling casual vacancies on Select Committees needs to be addressed, and will become ever more pressing as we approach an election and colleagues leave Select Committees, some to go into Government and some to defend a marginal seat a little more assiduously than they attend Select Committees. Some Select Committees are already experiencing that pressure. The question must be addressed now, and as the Executive control Parliament, they must address it, rather than letting it happen and then saying, “Look, these people can’t even fill the Select Committees.” It is the Government who cannot fill casual vacancies in Select Committees. Committee members are not elected. Those vacancies need to be filled—again, ironically—by the very people whom Select Committees hold to account.

I have two last items of unfinished business. One main item is pre-legislative scrutiny. We have invented pre-legislative scrutiny because legislative scrutiny is so pathetic. We have a new process, for which I was partly responsible, but it is a convention, so when very important matters come before the House, it is open to Government to ram them through. When the Government need to react to the media or tomorrow’s newspapers, they can introduce a Bill.

A classic recent example is the lobbying Bill, which will have no formal pre-legislative scrutiny. It will be rushed forward, even though my Select Committee considered the issue and produced a serious report more than a year ago. The Government have not replied to that report. They are pretty casual about replying—“There’s no real need; let’s just chill out and do it when we’re ready”—but given a couple of scandals, they react: “We’ve got to show we’re doing something.” Even though what they are doing has no relevance to the two cases that recently hit the headlines, they are ramming the Bill through quickly to get it into the sausage machine. Prostituting Parliament in that way will not make people respect the laws that are finally produced.

Pre-legislative scrutiny is important. It is not a nice add-on; it should be central business of this House, and in my opinion, it should be in our Parliament’s Standing Orders that as well as Second Reading, Report and consideration by the Lords, pre-legislative scrutiny should be mandatory unless the Speaker, in an emergency, says that it should not take place.

The final issue that needs to be tackled is Report. If there is a Member here who feels that Report is a good process and shows the House in a great light, I will gladly give way. It is shameful how Government and their administrators abuse the House of Commons by flooding the Order Paper with late amendments. Not content to do so on Report in the Commons, they then do the same in the House of Lords and when the Bill returns to the House of Commons. They are treating the House with absolute contempt. It is one of the hallmarks of our subservience to the Executive that we tolerate it and see it as a sensible way to do our business. It is not. It should be sorted out, and when it is, we may have a Parliament worthy of the name.

The Wright Committee did a great job. Tony Wright, the Chair, did an absolutely magnificent job of steering it. Its recommendations were not picked up by the then Labour Government—they were blocked—but we finally made some progress in the early days of the new Government. We must remember that next time: a solemn and binding promise agreed by not one but two parties—arguably, by three—has been broken.

Backbench Business Committee

Debate between Natascha Engel and Graham Allen

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have not had the opportunity to congratulate you since your election.

Before I deal with the main issue, I want to reflect a little on the time when we all served on the Wright Committee.

[Mr Allen]

Happy days.

[Natascha Engel]

They were indeed happy days, and very interesting. I am sorry that Tony Wright is not here to take part in the debate. I also want, especially, to say a big thank you to Mark Fisher, who did so much work with Parliament First, and to Evan Harris. He, too, is no longer with us. The Chamber misses him greatly, and I hate to think how he feels about not being in the Chamber any more; indeed, it does not bear thinking about.

I may not have agreed with the conclusions reached by the people whom I have mentioned, but I certainly agreed with much of the analysis of the problem that we had here in Parliament—in the context of scrutiny of the Executive, what we did as Back Benchers, and our control over our time. When I was on the Wright Committee I produced a minority report, but I consistently supported the establishment of a Back-Bench business Committee. I have always thought that, if established in the right way and for the right reasons, it could not just make debates livelier, but give Members much more control and a greater feeling of ownership of debates. Moreover, if we, as Back Benchers, could decide what issue to debate, by definition they would become more topical.

Many members of the Wright Committee are present today. I believe that our motivation was the same: we wanted to make proceedings in Parliament far more open and transparent. The detail is being discussed today, but the principle of the proposal was transparency. What people really objected to was not having an input, and not being able to see what was decided behind closed doors. The purpose of the Wright Committee was to begin re-establishing trust between not just the House, but us—its Members—and those who have elected us to represent and serve them. If we are to do justice to that intention, we must be much more open and transparent about what we do here. Without openness and transparency, people outside cannot have any say about what we do, far less have any influence on what we do.

In supporting the establishment of a Back-Bench committee, I think that we need to guard against a few things. We need to ask ourselves whether we are making a change for change’s sake. In the case of the Back-Bench committee, that is absolutely not the case—it is a necessary, good change. We also need to guard against unforeseen consequences. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) spoke earlier about the membership of Select Committees and said that the proposals on nominating Chairs and members excluded some of the minor parties. Those are all examples of unforeseen consequences. We need to take our time and to be careful to ensure that this is as open, transparent and fair as possible, so that we do not have unforeseen consequences—or even foreseen consequences.

My greatest concern—the thing that we most need to guard against, which I mentioned again and again when I was on the Select Committee and afterwards—is in relation to the transfer of power from one elite to another. The way that the Back-Bench committee is to be formulated and the way that its membership is to be elected means there is a danger of transferring power from the Whips Office, where deals are done behind closed doors and we learn what deal has been done when it is announced here by Front Benchers, to another back room where seven members and the Chair of the Back-Bench committee make the decision. I am not convinced that a member of that committee making an announcement of five minutes or less about its deliberations, or laying a report before the House about those deliberations, is enough. I would much rather see all the proceedings—every meeting—held in public. That is the only way in which we can ensure absolute openness and transparency. Not only that—it will engage people outside in what Back Benchers do in dealing with business here. It will engage them in a way that we have never engaged the public before. That would be a massive leap forward.

All of us would like to see an end to the current system of power and patronage held by the Whips, but we would be naive to think that, just by moving the power away from the Whips and giving it to a small group of Back Benchers, we will get rid of the patronage. We will not. If meetings of the Back-Bench committee are held behind closed doors, there will just be a direct transfer of patronage from the Whips Office to the Back-Bench committee.

[Natascha Engel]

That is something that we should look at. Smaller memberships are not beneficial—we should look at having a much wider membership.

I want to look at the ways in which we can participate better, not just as Members, but by engaging people who have an interest in this matter. Many democracy organisations and members of the public have a deep interest in what we do. The instinct to restrict the size of things is a bad one—I would much rather see it broadened out.

[Mr Allen]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s strong, clear and valuable contributions in the Wright Committee. I must, however, perhaps test her on one thing. If we had a business committee that always met in public, would there not be a danger that some of the necessary decisions that have to be taken on a give-and-take, wheeler-dealer basis, where someone does one thing and another person does another and where things are postponed, would go into the undergrowth? We might be no better off. Although I agree that some of the sittings should be in public, other sittings would benefit from being in private.

[Natascha Engel]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

We are trying to move to a better place, but we cannot do it all in one go. There is not only a Back-Bench business committee now, but other business committees—the usual channels, which get together in a cabal, and, semi-formally, the Committee of Selection. Let us not pretend that we do not already have a business committee. We do, and it is underground and tolerates no dissent. Furthermore, it allows no Back-Bench influence. We need to strike a balance—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire was trying to do that. She was not laying out one particular view—neither am I—but we need to try to ensure that the Back-Bench business committee works effectively. If it does not, we cannot get to stage 2, which is a fully fledged business committee, with Back Benchers, Whips and others represented.

[Natascha Engel]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his election as Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. In my speech, I was trying to say that our starting point should be that the Back-Bench business committee should be open and transparent to avoid what he—of all the members of the Wright Committee—most disliked, which is the murkiness of the usual channels. If that is our starting point, we can examine the question of meeting in private or public, but we need to establish how Back Benchers will make representations to the committee to have an influence on the business of the House. Those discussions should be held in public. The decisions that are then taken can be taken in private.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

Yes, but the Leader of the House explains the business on a Thursday. He does not have to get up before every debate and give a little reason or excuse for its subject matter. I accept that I am finding fault in a generally excellent set of proposals, but if I do not do so now, we could be stuck with the proposal that a member of the Back-Bench business committee must give an explanation before every topical debate, general debate and Adjournment debate. That is an onerous task. The Wright Committee expressed the view that every member of the Back-Bench business committee should play a part, so would the most junior member have to stand at the Dispatch Box to give a little trailer of what is to come? Would they be cross-examined by Members about why the committee did not pick an important constituency issue or why it neglected another vital issue? How silly! This is a piece of trivia that we should reject tonight. I hope that the Leader of the House, who has got so much right here, will not hang himself on a vote—whether he wins or loses it—on getting Back-Bench business committee members to explain why a particular subject was chosen, other than at business questions, as he does, where the committee chair would be available, as the Church Commissioner and others are during different question times, to chip in and answer questions, make sensible changes, and respond to requests. We would all like to see that.

[Natascha Engel]

I really do not understand. How then is the Back-Bench business committee accountable? How is it open and transparent, and how will other Back-Bench Members know how it has gone about selecting the business for the day?

[Mr Allen]

The Wright Committee went into this in detail. Essentially, we decided that the chair of the Back-Bench business committee would be seated in the House during business questions. The Leader of the House would give the normal business statement, and if someone had a specific question about Back-Bench business, the chair could answer it.

[Natascha Engel]

How is that different from the usual channels?

[Mr Allen]

It is very different from the usual channels, who do not say anything—in fact, are banned from saying anything—on the Floor of the House. So this would make it more open. However, to insist that that person appears three or four, five or even a dozen times a week to explain why one person’s topic, rather than those of 50 other people, was chosen would take it, in this case only, to a level of absurdity. That would fly in the face of all the other very sensible provisions in the Back-Bench business motions before us.