Private Members’ Bills: Money Resolutions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, brevity is my style; I will certainly do what you request.

A fundamental part of our democracy in this country is the link between the constituency and the community, but that has been thrown out completely in this process. I do not blame the Boundary Commission for that; I blame the coalition Government. Let us remember that there was a coalition, and the Liberal Democrats signed up as well.

There has also been the argument that the cost of democracy will somehow be reduced. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood) asked how many peers David Cameron created. He created 198 in six years, and I understand that the cost of that is an additional £22 million a year.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Jones]

Unfortunately, I cannot give way because I do not have the time.

This debate is not about the cost, but about the fact that the Government cannot secure a majority in this House. They do not have a majority among their own Back Benchers to support their legislation, and if they were really thinking about the public purse, they would ditch the Boundary Commission review now, adopt the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, so that we can equalise constituencies and get on with the process, which would actually save, not cost, money.

May I finish by making a point about the Leader of the House, whose job is to uphold and protect our rights as a Chamber? I am sorry, but I do not think she is doing a very good job of that at all. She has found herself on this occasion bowing to the inevitable, with a Government who clearly do not have a majority, but want to get their own way at all costs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that the expenditure in this case—I think it is some £13 million—is insignificant; that money would pay for 300 nurses. If Labour Members are seeking to advance the argument that £13 million of our constituents’ money is insignificant, I think they are sorely mistaken. If that is their attitude, it perhaps explains why the deficit they bequeathed us in 2010 was quite so large.

To move on to the process, the Government are taking quite a sensible view by saying that they will wait and see when it comes to the money resolution for this private Member’s Bill, because we have an active process that is currently running and on which considerable time and money have already been expended. There will be a report to the Government and also to the House in a matter of three or four months, and to have two separate processes cutting across and indeed contradicting each other before the House has reached a decision on the first process strikes me as duplicative and wasteful. It is therefore quite reasonable to wait for three or four months—it is not very long: a matter of a few weeks—before deciding how to proceed.

The House itself will reach a decision about the proposed boundaries with 600 constituencies in the month of October, and having waited seven or eight years we can quite comfortably wait until then. At that point, we will of course have a debate about the Boundary Commission proposals, and the fact that the Government are prepared to wait and see with regard to this private Member’s Bill until then hints at some degree of open-mindedness about the outcome of whether we are equalising at 600 or 650 constituencies. That open-mindedness actually shows respect for the House because the Government are saying that they will listen to the House’s opinion in a few months’ time. There are of course good arguments on both sides—in favour of 600 and in favour of 650. The arguments in favour of 600, of course, relate to reducing the cost of and having a more manageable House, but there are clearly good arguments in favour of 650, not least—

[Nick Smith]

rose—

[Chris Philp]

I want to conclude, as other Members want to speak.

Not least among the arguments for 650 is the fact that we in this House will have more work to do when powers return from the European Parliament, where they are currently exercised. We will have that debate in due course.

The Government are being pragmatic and sensible by keeping the door open for this private Member’s Bill until the House makes its decision known. On the fundamental constitutional principle of who initiates expenditure and whether this House acts as a legislature or as an Executive, I think the Government and the Leader of the House are quite right and she enjoys my enthusiastic and unqualified support.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I shall keep my comments brief, as I am aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) needs to respond to this very important debate.

I would like to take at face value the comments made by the Leader of the House about her being a champion for the Chamber. I will not go as far as other Members, but I will say that we have to do far more on the rights of Back-Bench Members to secure new legislation. When I presented my private Member’s Bill to reduce the voting age to 16, it was not the money resolution that blocked it. We had 150-plus MPs present to move a closure motion, but unfortunately the previous Bill was deliberately talked out by the Government. That is very difficult, because the Bill that was considered before mine was legitimate and important, and was on a subject that was very sensitive. How could I object to that? But that tactic is deployed regularly on Bills with broad support in order to frustrate the process a bit further on.

If David Cameron was serious about reducing the cost of politics, it cannot be right that the payroll vote, as it stands, is the biggest since 1979. The number of people who are paid or unpaid members of the Government —Ministers or Parliamentary Private Secretaries—is high, at 21% of the House of Commons. If the number of MPs is reduced to 600, nearly a quarter of all members of the Commons will be on the Government payroll, which will reduce even further the ability of this Chamber to be independent, to hold the Government to account in the way that a democracy ought to, and to have good governance in place because of that.

Every Prime Minister has the right to nominate Members to the House of Lords, and every Prime Minister in my memory has exercised that right, but it is hypocritical to say that the decision to reduce the number of MPs by 50 is about reducing the cost of democracy while in the same breath appointing more Members to the House of Lords. If that proposed change goes through, there will be 215 more Members of the House of Lords than of the House of Commons, so the second Chamber would be significantly bigger than the elected Chamber.

I want to say this in defence of MPs—

[Nick Smith]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jim McMahon]

I am not going to, just because I have only about a minute left.

In defence of MPs, we ought to be very careful not to downgrade the work we do to represent our constituents. It is all right to say in a flippant way that there could be fewer MPs and the public would not even notice, but what I can say is that in my constituency on a Friday and Saturday there are people who need help. I do not just come to Parliament to make laws; I go back to Oldham to give people support and to help them navigate the system of Government Departments. We do our best. If Member support is part of the cost, it cannot be right for the Government to have it in mind to reduce the number of caseworkers or researchers who support parliamentary activity. MPs have to be given the right support to do the job properly.

The truth is what we will really be saving is the money around the edges—MPs’ salaries and minor travel and accommodation costs—because the staffing contingent, which is the largest budget, will remain the same. Let us be honest about this: it is about gaming the system, in the way that individual voter registration has gamed the system and in the way that we have seen the House of Lords packed—be honest about it, and at least defend it.