G20

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

They all agreed to take the necessary action on tax exchange with the UK, international tax co-operation and beneficial ownership, all of which was set out at the meeting I had with them. I cannot recall the exact timetable off the top of my head, but I will make this point: I do not think it is fair any longer to refer to any of the overseas territories or Crown dependencies as tax havens. They have taken action to make sure that they have fair and open tax systems. It is very important that our focus should now shift to those territories and countries that really are tax havens. The Crown dependencies and overseas territories, which matter so much—quite rightly—to the British people and Members have taken the necessary action and should get the backing for it.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Parliamentarians on both sides of the House will be extremely grateful to the Prime Minister for recalling Parliament and giving Members a vote on the Syrian question. In my opinion, the last two weeks have been the Prime Minister’s finest hour so far. Does he share my concern that, given that the Opposition’s amendment was so close to the Government’s motion, the Leader of the Opposition, who is a very honourable man, had not the statesmanship to put his disagreements aside and support the Prime Minister?

[The Prime Minister]

The Leader of the Opposition will have to give his own explanation. All I can say is that what I tried to do was put a motion before the House that included all the issues that had been raised with me. I wanted to bring the House together. The Opposition chose not to do that. I think that is a matter of regret, but the Leader of the Opposition will have to offer his own explanation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Ah, a Northamptonshire choice. I call Mr Philip Hollobone.

[Mr Maude]

Certainly, so far as the central Government estate in London is concerned, it will be down by well over a quarter, but that is only the beginning, because obviously property disposals and vacancies take time, for some of the reasons that the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) just referred to; that cannot be done literally overnight. We have made considerable progress already, however, as it is down by nearly a quarter and there will be much more to come.

[Mr Bone]

I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) did not have the nerve to suggest that Government should relocate to Kettering, because he knows the place to come to is 50 minutes from London and it is Wellingborough. Will the Minister encourage Departments to move to Wellingborough, especially the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister?

[Mr Maude]

I can imagine that no relocation destination would be more popular with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister than my hon. Friend’s constituency—or failing that, perhaps the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone).

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely serious point. As I have just said, in the end there is no 100% certainty about who is responsible; you have to make a judgment. There is also no 100% certainty about what path of action might succeed or fail. But let me say this to the hon. Lady. I think we can be as certain as possible that a regime that has used chemical weapons on 14 occasions and is most likely responsible for this large-scale attack, will conclude, if nothing is done, that it can use these weapons again and again on a larger scale and with impunity.

People talk about escalation; to me, the biggest danger of escalation is if the world community—not just Britain, but America and others—stands back and does nothing. I think Assad will draw very clear conclusions from that.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Prime Minister is making a very powerful and heartfelt speech. Could he explain to the House why he thinks President Assad did this? There seems to be no logic to this chemical attack and that is what is worrying some people.

[The Prime Minister]

That is a very good question. If my hon. Friend reads the JIC conclusions, he will see that this is where it finds the greatest difficulty—ascribing motives. Lots of motives have been ascribed. For my part, I think the most likely possibility is that Assad has been testing the boundaries. At least 14 uses and no response—he wants to know whether the world will respond to the use of these weapons, which I suspect, tragically and repulsively, are proving quite effective on the battlefield. But in the end we cannot know the mind of this brutal dictator; all we can do is make a judgment about whether it is better to act or not to act and whether he is responsible or not responsible. In the end, these are all issues of judgment, and as Members of Parliament we all have to make them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher). He made a powerful point, to which I want to return a little later.

May I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the Prime Minister for recalling Parliament? Today’s debate was absolutely necessary. It has been a very good debate. Party politics have not been involved. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have argued different points of view. That is what is good about today.

I have been under no pressure from my Whip to vote one way or the other. That is a really good sign. Hon. Members are wrestling today with a very difficult issue. I find these occasions, when we have to decide what is morally right and whether or not we will kill people and whether, by killing them, we save other people in the long run, immensely difficult. I have made it clear to the Prime Minister that I have not made up my mind tonight, and that my decision will rely entirely on the summing up by the Deputy Prime Minister—[Interruption.] I would like to thank the Deputy Prime Minister for spending much of the afternoon listening to the debate.

Thank goodness we have a British parliamentary democracy. We MPs can come here and influence the decision of the Executive. Everybody knows that MPs from both sides of the House have influenced the Prime Minister to change the position of the Executive. In the States, there are 100 Congressmen begging the President to let them debate the issue. We are so much better off in this House.

In response to what the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton said, the question is indeed what we should do to solve this exceptionally difficult problem, because just bombing will not solve it. There needs to be a disproportionate response. What I think President Obama has done is to have got out “The West Wing” series and looked at what President Bartlet would have done under the circumstances. There is exactly that episode: “If we bomb Damascus airport, we are going to kill thousands of people, but they will never do it again.” Of course, the expert then says, “If you do that, the whole world will be against you.” The President asks “Well, what do we do?” and the reply is, “You just bomb a few buildings, which have been emptied because everybody knows which buildings are going to be bombed.” The President says, “That will have no effect,” but the experts say, “Yes, but that is actually what you have to do. You have to have a response.” That may be how it works in America, but it does not work like that here.

I am very interested in one point that I hope the Deputy Prime Minister will help us with tonight. If we vote against the motion and both motions happen to be lost, does it mean that there is no guarantee that there will be a second vote in this House?

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The question is about a party matter. It is not a matter of Government responsibility, not a matter—[Interruption.] No, no: it is not a matter for the Prime Minister—complete waste of time.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The all-party group against human trafficking has raised the awareness of modern-day slavery to a great level. I am delighted to report that last night 158 hon. and right hon. Members of this House and the other House attended the annual general meeting. That is a credit to the Prime Minister’s personal commitment to this issue. Would he consider, perhaps in the next Queen’s Speech, having a modern slavery Act?

[The Prime Minister]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the consistent work he has done on this vital issue. It is important that we wipe out modern-day slavery, and I very much enjoyed going to meet him and other Members to see just how bad the situation is. We are looking at legislative options, and I will be chairing a committee across Government to look at what more can be done.

Afghanistan and EU Council

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree: we should support Croatia, and we have agreed to the use of the European budget to make sure Croatia gets its receipts from the EU as well as making its payments into the EU. The strength of widening the EU is not only that when those countries come in they become even greater trading partners and investment partners for Britain, but that as part of the process of preparing to join they have to put their own houses in order to tackle corruption, improve the rule of law and so forth. We have seen that in Croatia, we are seeing it in Serbia, and it is very welcome.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Last night I had a phone call from Afghanistan, from my son. He wanted to express to this House how much the serving members of our armed forces who are out there appreciate the efforts of the Prime Minister in coming out there and speaking to them personally. I hope the Prime Minister will accept those thanks.

[The Prime Minister]

May I, through my hon. Friend, thank his son for his service in Afghanistan? We have been there for many years now, and we come across people now who are on their second or third tour of Afghanistan—people who have spent many months of their lives working under very difficult conditions. We can be proud of the fact that when we sit in a room with our armed forces and ask them about the job they are doing, the morale is high; they are enthusiastic about the capabilities of the Afghan security forces, and they are also enthusiastic about the kit they receive. There are still issues we need to deal with—more access to wi-fi and one or two other things—but generally speaking I found people in high morale who are enthusiastic about the job they are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It was when the hon. Gentleman’s party abandoned its historical commitment to giving the people a say. It used to be the people’s party and now it is the party of privilege all over again.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Liberal Democrats used to be the party of minority but, thanks to the courageous leadership of the Deputy Prime Minister, he has just answered questions from the Dispatch Box in parts 1 and 2 of Question Time, with five or six Liberal Democrat Ministers sitting alongside him. Can I say how many Conservative Members want him to continue as Lib Dem leader and Deputy Prime Minister?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am so stunned by that; I am still trying to work out the barbed comment or intent that must be buried within it. I will take it at face value and thank the hon. Gentleman for what I will take on this occasion to be a compliment.

Engagements

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Ministerial Corrections

The following are answers given by the Deputy Prime Minister to questions asked by the hon. Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) during Prime Minister’s Question Time on 15 May 2013:

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that the only party in this House offering an in/out referendum is the Conservative party?

The Deputy Prime Minister: I know the hon. Gentleman hates to be reminded of things that he and I have actually done together when we have been on the same side of the argument, but we spent 100 days in the early part of this Parliament passing legislation, opposed by the Labour party, that for the first time ever gives a guarantee in law about when a referendum on Europe will take place—when the rules next change or new things are asked of the United Kingdom within the European Union. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the Conservative party are perfectly free for their own reasons to move the goalposts, but this legislation is in place and the people of Britain have a guarantee about when a referendum will take place, and that is what I suggest we should all go out and promote.

[Official Report, 15 May 2013, Vol. 563, c. 627-28.]

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

The Deputy Prime Minister is a great democrat as well as a Liberal, and I salute him for that. Will he therefore stand by the precise wording in this very fetching Liberal Democrat leaflet that I happened to find on my desk this morning, which says:

“Only a real referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU will let the people decide our country’s future.”

Will he now stand by that solemn pledge to the people of Britain and join us in the Lobby tonight?

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Liberal Democrats, and indeed Conservatives, are working together to clear up the mess left by the hon. Gentleman’s party. It is this Government who are delivering more apprenticeships than ever before, delivering a cap on social care costs, delivering a decent state pension for everybody and clearing up the mess in the banking system left by that man there—the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls)—and so many other people on the Labour Benches.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that the only party in this House offering an in/out referendum is the Conservative party?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I know the hon. Gentleman hates to be reminded of things that he and I have actually done together when we have been on the same side of the argument, but we spent 100 days in the early part of this Parliament passing legislation, opposed by the Labour party, that for the first time ever gives a guarantee in law about when a referendum on Europe will take place—when the rules next change or new things are asked of the United Kingdom within the European Union. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the Conservative party are perfectly free for their own reasons to move the goalposts, but this legislation is in place and the people of Britain have a guarantee about when a referendum will take place, and that is what I suggest we should all go out and promote.[Official Report, 16 May 2013, Vol. 563, c. 7-8MC.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

As the hon. Lady will know—I hope she will forgive me—we do not, as Law Officers, explain when and where we have given advice. Her point is very important, however. Victims of human trafficking need to be identified and it is important that they should not be prosecuted or treated disrespectfully once that is known. That is one of the points being discussed in the interdepartmental ministerial group and she is right to highlight it.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend referred to the interdepartmental ministerial group. Is not one of the problems that there are lots of different Acts of Parliament? Would there be any merit in pulling all the different Acts together in a consolidation Act on modern day slavery?

[The Solicitor-General]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in this area. It is possible to consider putting a number of laws into a consolidating statute, but the problem is that we tend as a House of Commons to say, “We have these laws. Do we want to spend time consolidating them when we might have other matters to deal with?” Taking such an action was recommended in the recent report from the Centre for Social Justice, however. I have discussed it with the authors and the interdepartmental ministerial group will consider it.

Royal Charter on Press Conduct

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

I am afraid that I do not share the hon. Lady’s disappointment. The last thing I want is for the royal charter, or the House in particular, to dictate who should or should not serve on the regulatory body. That is a matter for the press, although it will need to meet the requirements laid down by Lord Justice Leveson, which will be enforced by the regulatory body. However, I am sure that the press will have heard what the hon. Lady has said, and will want women to be represented on the body when it comes to make its appointments.

This will be a voluntary system. It will be possible for Private Eye, perhaps The Spectator, perhaps even a major newspaper, to stand outside the system, and maybe to have its own regulatory body; but if the press are to enjoy protection from the award of exemplary damages in defamation actions, some legislation will be required. I think that that has always been accepted, and I think that it is sensible. It is ironic that some of those who have been campaigning on the issue were prepared to jeopardise the Defamation Bill, which they themselves recognised as being so important, and which is vital to the protection of not just the press but individuals who suffer defamation.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend say a little about the process that has taken place? A major reform has been decided behind closed doors with representatives of party leaders, perhaps unelected. Members of Parliament did not even have a chance to look at the draft until the beginning of the debate. Is he in any way concerned about that?

[Mr Whittingdale]

The original draft was published some days ago, although it has been subject to amendment. I fear that the truncation of the process over the past 24 hours has prevented us from having as much time as was desirable, but if the outcome has been the achievement of all-party agreement and the opportunity to have this debate, I personally welcome that outcome.

The safeguard in the charter—the requirement for a two-thirds majority in both Houses—is welcome because it will send the message that politicians will tamper with the royal charter at their peril. It is, of course, somewhat cosmetic, as any future Government with a majority in Parliament could overturn it and legislate if they chose to do so. It does, however, send the additional, powerful message that this is something in which politicians should not become involved. That issue has always underlain all my misgivings—and, I think, those of my hon. Friends—about the original recommendations in Lord Justice Leveson’s report.

I greatly welcome the fact that we have now achieved this agreement. I hope that it will deliver what we all want: a free press, protected from interference or pressure from politicians, but at the same time subject to clear rules enforced by a tough and independent regulator. If that is the outcome, the House will have done a good job.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hughes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is a journalist by training, for his work on the subject. One of the good things about today is that we liberate the Defamation Bill and enable it to become the law of the land. We have a very out-of-date defamation law. It has fallen into disrepute and one of the things that we will have done—I was going to mention it—is make sure that we do not clog up other legislation on which both Houses have worked very hard, and prevent it from becoming law—the Crime and Courts Bill, the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill and the Defamation Bill. I hope we can now go on to get the legislation as right as is humanly possible in the remaining weeks of this Session.

There is a suggestion that some parts of our society should be outwith any legal construct. I do not think that has ever been accepted in this country, and when we have not seen adequate self-regulation, Parliament has intervened. We have done it in recent years in respect of doctors, solicitors and ourselves. We have taken complete self-regulation away from this place because we did not think we were doing the job properly, and The Daily Telegraph and others showed that we were not doing our job properly. I commend them for what they did.

We have always followed the adage of the old judge, “Be you ever so high, the law is above you”, and that applies to the press too. We have never had a press free from the laws of the land, but—returning to the intervention from the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly)—the libel law, the defamation law, was not available to most of the public. It was available to the rich and famous, and very difficult for ordinary people to pursue. Yes, there is criminal law governing the press, and phone hacking was illegal under criminal law. That did not deal with all the complaints and all the problems that had arisen.

I, like others here, am one of the victims of those illegalities, but I do not think any of us here think that the problem was that we were getting it in the neck or that celebrities were getting it in the neck. We felt moved to act because people who were entirely out of the public eye suddenly found themselves entirely in the public eye, vilified, abused, misrepresented, traduced or publicly humiliated. It is people in the estates in Bermondsey and in the constituencies of all of us whom we are seeking to support, not because they do not need a free press—they do—but because on occasions the press had abused them without adequate remedy.

[Mr Bone]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful statement, but is he really arguing that something like the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is being set up? There is a serious point here. We know that IPSA has reduced the effectiveness of Members of Parliament, and if we are setting up a similar body which reduces the power of the press, we have something to worry about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Sorry, we have to rename all of these things. It is great to be heckled by the leader of my own party.

Article 9 of the charter specifies that the charter cannot be changed except by a two-thirds majority. Incidentally, the answer to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is that the two thirds applies not to all Members of the House, but just to those who vote. The most important thing is that that provision in article 9 has to be put into statute. That is the statutory underpinning that protects the charter, the House and everybody else from Ministers.

[Mr Bone]

rose—

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Garnier]

The short answer is that I do not know, but I would hazard a guess that if a signed-up member, which would therefore be susceptible to the jurisdiction of the body, failed to do what the body commanded, it would be in breach of contract, and arrangements would be put in place to ensure either that the contract was complied with or that damages were payable for breach of contract. Someone might have to litigate the breach of contract, but the system might contain fail-safe measures allowing the independent body to revisit the matter and deal with the malefactor in some preordained, but sensible, way.

[Mr Bone]

Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Sir Edward Garnier]

I will take this interjection, but I am beginning to waffle, and it is high time I sat down.

[Mr Bone]

Is not one of the problems with this process that we have not had time to read and prepare for the detailed issues, such as the ones we have just been discussing? That is a flaw in the process and could lead to bad legislation.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

I am afraid that that is just one of the things we have to live with, and if we cannot cope with it, we are probably in the wrong place. I noticed that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was able to speak for 12 fluent minutes without having seen the motion or read the charter—but then he might have prepared something earlier.