Ministerial Statements

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate, which is being held only because this coalition Government established the Backbench Business Committee, giving it the opportunity to set the debate and allow a vote. The shadow Leader of the House raised the availability of the autumn statement. We always use our best endeavours to get the documents to the Opposition Whips office within 45 minutes, and we will continue to do so.

Let me set out the Government’s position on the motion moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone). As he said, it arises from, and refers to, the Procedure Committee report on ministerial statements published in February. The Committee was asked to prepare its report as a result of the debate on the first Backbench Business Committee day on 20 July last year and the motion, also moved by my hon. Friend, that was agreed that day.

The Chair of the Procedure Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), sought a debate on a motion taking note of that report, which would have covered more issues than are under discussion today, but the motion was never debated. The Backbench Business Committee has now chosen to introduce its own motion on the subject, drawing on parts of certain Procedure Committee recommendations —although, as my right hon. Friend implied, it is unclear why we are not debating the whole report. As the shadow Leader of the House said, we responded in full to the Procedure Committee’s report and our views on its recommendations have been available to hon. Members since May. We made it clear in our response that we did not support the relevant recommendations of the Procedure Committee and so it should come as no surprise to the House that we are not able to accept today’s motion.

Let me begin by setting out where the Government are at one with the Procedure Committee and, indeed, with the majority of those who have spoken in the debate, before setting out where we disagree. The ministerial code states:

“When Parliament is in session the most important announcements of Government policy should be made, in the first instance, to Parliament.”

My Cabinet colleagues are very mindful of that requirement, and I do not hesitate to remind them of it. But there is clearly a “tension”—that word was used by the shadow Leader of the House—between the realities of the 24-hour news cycle and the requirement of the ministerial code. As the Government said in their response to the Procedure Committee in the spring:

“Ministers’ obligations to Parliament are paramount, but the Government also has a duty to communicate its policies and programme effectively to the wider public, including through the platform of a 24-hour news media. These dual pressures have been a reality under all recent governments”.

My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) made that point in his effective contribution.

I looked through the evidence to the Procedure Committee and read that a former Minister, the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), said in his:

“I don’t think we should complain about Government trying to maximise the positive media for its policy. Any Government is going to do that.”

Ministers must adhere to the responsibilities of the code, but we also need to bear in mind the need to address the public’s desire for timely, accurate information, especially when fast-moving events have a capacity to distort or misrepresent the Government’s policy. The public’s appetite for that does not start and end with the day’s sitting hours—again, that point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Poole.

Of course the House has legitimate expectations in this area, and this Government are making many more statements than their predecessor. We have so far made 163 oral statements this Session, and compared with the last two Sessions of the previous Government, this Government are making 40% more oral statements than Labour Ministers—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). We have only to look at the record of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to see how importantly the Government view the House’s role in scrutinising policy. My right hon. Friend has spent almost 30 hours at the Dispatch Box, making 24 oral statements so far this Session, which is a considerably better record than his predecessor.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House state how many of that increased number of statements were forced on the Government by the increase in urgent questions?

[Sir George Young]

None is the answer; urgent questions are in addition to the statements to which I have just referred.

I do not believe that the motion either sets realistic standards or proposes an appropriate path for what might follow from a departure from the standards. I say in passing that it also threatens to undermine the basis that all Ministers are equal under the ministerial code, because the motion applies only to Commons Ministers.