Backbench Business Committee

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Angela Smith]

It is a minimum of two women, and the Opposition have plenty of very good women who would put their names forward. In my view, women on the Labour Benches are equally likely to be represented on the Committee as our male colleagues, if not more so.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Angela Smith]

Very briefly, but then I must make progress, because I want to give Back-Bench Members time to make their contributions.

[Mr Bone]

As I understand it, the Government’s proposal will do away with the gender balance on the Committee. Does the hon. Lady support that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I rise to speak against the motion, largely in sadness and regret, because I will have to criticise those on the Government Front Bench, particularly the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House. I could do that in 10 seconds, because as we have already heard, Government and Opposition Front Benchers support the motion on the Backbench Business Committee, so we could almost say, “When the two Front Benches agree, it’s a clearly a stitch-up and can't be right for the House”—and sit down.

This attempt to alter Standing Orders on the Backbench Business Committee to suit the Executive is absolutely outrageous. It is an attempt by the Executive to ignore Parliament and to impose their will on the House. What is particularly shocking is that they are trying to interfere with business that is exclusively Back-Bench business. Such business has no relevance whatever to the Government.

The Government’s actions fly in the face of the House of Commons Reform Committee report, “Rebuilding the House”, HC1117, which proposed what are known throughout the House as the Wright reforms. Those reforms were designed to restore trust in Parliament and to reduce the power of the Executive. They were the very reforms that the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House supported so vigorously when they were in opposition. I am sad to say that it has taken less than two years for the Government to do a U-turn and go back to the bad old days of the Executive trying to tell Parliament what to do. There have been several signs over the past few months that the Government are adopting the policy of always knowing right and of assuming that Parliament is there only to rubber-stamp their decisions. This motion is the clearest and most obvious breach of their commitment to put Parliament first.

One of the most shocking and shameful aspects of the debate is its timing. The Leader of the House put the motion on the Order Paper without any consultation with the Backbench Business Committee. Even more significantly, he did so only hours after the Committee met, so that it could not formally consider the issue. He has also tabled the debate and vote prior to tomorrow’s Committee meeting. He has deliberately slighted the Committee, which meets weekly, by putting the motion on the Order Paper hours after last Tuesday’s meeting and before tomorrow’s meeting.

What is even more reprehensible is that the Committee is reviewing its operation so that it can report to the House and provide evidence to the Procedure Committee’s inquiry. The Government’s timing is the most disgraceful discourtesy to the Backbench Business Committee. The Leader of the House is saying to the Committee: “I want to sneak this through before your Committee can formally protest.” That is devious, undemocratic and a disgrace to the Government.

I shall now turn to the crux of the matter—this is why the motion should be defeated. The Procedure Committee, chaired so ably by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), who is in his place, announced on 21 February 2012 that it was launching a review of the operation of the Backbench Business Committee in accordance with a previous motion agreed by the House of Commons. The review was

“in particular to inquire into…issues relating to the membership of the Committee…the amount of time available to the Committee and the way in which the Government allocates that time…the powers of the Committee, and the process by which the Committee determines the matters to be debated in backbench time.”

The closing date for submissions was Thursday 8 March. Let us dwell on that for a moment. Thursday 8 March was two days after the Government tabled their motion and decided what the House would do. At best, that was a shoddy attempt by the Government to ignore a Select Committee; at worst, it was an attempt by the Government to interfere with a Select Committee, which could give rise to a number of issues for the Minister, possibly including a breach of the ministerial code and referral to the Standards and Privileges Committee. The Government might think that they can ignore the will of Parliament, but this is a different Parliament from previous ones. This Parliament is willing to stand up to an all-powerful Executive.

As the House is aware, Members were requested to send representations to the Procedure Committee by last Thursday. The first three things they were asked to consider were:

“The composition of the Committee and the process for electing its members; whether the Chair of the Committee should be reserved for an opposition Member; whether a place on the Committee should be reserved for the minority parties.”

The top three issues, then, that we were asked to consider and report on to the Procedure Committee by last Thursday are exactly the three issues that the Government are trying to shoot through Parliament today.

The Executive have decided, without waiting for the Procedure Committee report, that Committee members will be elected by party groups and that the Chair of the Committee will be an Opposition Member, and they have completely fudged the issue of the minority parties. The Government have predetermined the Procedure Committee’s inquiry before it has had time to collate the written evidence, take oral evidence and consider its report.

[Mr Baron]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s explanation—that they had to push this through prior to an election—runs rather shallow given that, unlike for other Committees of the House, elections are every Session, so these proposals could quite easily have been postponed for a year until the next elections?

[Mr Bone]

Of course that is the case. These elections will determine the Backbench Business Committee not for the term of the Parliament but for a year. If the Procedure Committee happened to report after the next elections and there was a change to procedure, the elections afterwards could be run on the new system. There was absolutely no need to prejudge the Select Committee report, apart from the fact that it might have resolved matters differently from what the Government wanted.

[Mr Knight]

May I place it on the record that the Procedure Committee will in no way feel inhibited by what is determined today? Does my hon. Friend agree that what the House decides today it can later decide to undo or amend?

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s comments. Nobody who knows him will think that this sort of ploy could possibly affect what his Committee does.

I turn to one of the most appalling aspects of today—the whipping on the Conservative Benches. There is no question but that this is House business, and there is no question but that it is Back-Bench business. By convention, such votes should not carry a Whip; they should be free votes. There is no way that the Executive should try to instruct the House how to organise Back-Bench business affairs, but Conservative Members were told last week that we would be on a three-line Whip to vote for this outrageous motion. After protests, the Whips Office reduced it to a one-line Whip. [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) laughs, and of course he knows why the Whips Office did that: to keep Back Benchers away from the House. I have received a very nice text from a Member saying, “I’m out working in my constituency. Aren’t the xxx Whips very devious?” That is very true.

After our protests, then, the Whips Office reduced the vote to a one-line Whip, but that is not a genuine free vote, because Members here will still be instructed how to vote. This is wrong, should not be happening and flies in the face of the coalition Government’s pledge to restore trust in Parliament. Even worse, I understand that Ministers and Parliamentary Private Secretaries are on a three-line Whip to vote through this despicable motion. The very people who should have no interest in Back-Bench business are the ones who are being told to vote for the changes. I am more than happy to take an intervention from the Leader of the House if that is not the case. [Interruption.] I see he does not want to intervene. This really is going back to the bad old days.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that some years ago, in an extremely important book called “The Commons In Transition”, a former Clerk of the House said that the root of all the trouble with Standing Orders and whipping was collusion between the two Front Benches in the 1880s in order to take control of Standing Orders away from the Speaker? In those days it was the Speaker who determined these questions, which preserved the integrity of the House.

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, but I think you would admonish me if I went down that route, Mr Speaker, as it is a little wide of today’s debate, although I must say that it has much merit.

[Mr Speaker]

I might not.

[Mr Bone]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I turn to the amendments in my name and five of the seven other members of the Backbench Business Committee, including the Chairman. The purpose of amendments (d), (e) and (f) is to leave out the Government’s proposed changes to the election of Backbench Business Committee members. The Government are proposing that future members of the Committee will be elected by party group. There are two distinct disadvantages to that proposal. The first—I suggest that this is the reason for it—is that it will give the Government, as well as the shadow Government, greater influence in deciding who is elected to the Backbench Business Committee. Through their Whips Offices, they will try to engineer more pliable Members to be elected to the Committee. I believe that this will make the Committee much more divided on party lines. In all the time that the current Committee has met, there has been only one vote, and that did not divide it along party lines. The Government’s proposal will reduce the likelihood that independent parliamentarians will be elected to the Committee.

Secondly, the authority that members of the Committee hold is greatly enhanced by their being chosen by the whole House. Their mandate comes from Back Benchers of all political persuasions, not by a narrow party group. The Wright Committee was clear on that issue, saying in paragraph 180 of its report on page 54:

“We therefore recommend that a Backbench Business Committee be created. It should be comprised of between seven and nine members elected by secret ballot of the House as a whole”.

So there we have it: the Wright report recommends that individual members of the Committee should be elected by the whole House, not by party groups. That is what the House agreed when setting up the Backbench Business Committee—the House agreed with the Wright Committee. Now the Government want to change Standing Orders while a Select Committee is looking into the matter, and against the wishes of the Wright Committee and an earlier decision of the House.

In conclusion, I therefore wish to press my amendments, and if they are not accepted by the Government, I will seek your leave to divide the House, Mr Speaker. I will also be supporting the amendments in the name of the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel). I would urge Members both to support the amendments and to vote against the motion.