Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I gently make the point that there would not be a Backbench Business Committee allocating any time at all had this Government not set it up. I am not sure I agree with the premise on which the hon. Gentleman’s question was based, namely that a debate in Westminster Hall is not sufficient recognition of an issue. Some of the best debates I have attended in this Session have been in Westminster Hall, including a very moving debate on Holocaust memorial day last month. I think we need to dispel the myth that because something is debated in Westminster Hall it is not important. We should do all we can to raise the public perception of debates in Westminster Hall rather than denigrate them.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The whole House will thank the Leader of the House for provisionally publishing the dates of recess and for private Members’ Bills, which is a welcome move. If the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) does not like those dates and wants to be here on Wednesdays, she can lead the Opposition through the Division Lobby and vote against it. Indeed, I might well be with her on that occasion. Would it not be much easier and help the Backbench Business Committee out enormously if the 35 days in the next Session for Back-Bench business were allocated in the calendar? They would not have to be on the same day each week and they could even be provisional, but it would help us enormously if they were allocated.

[Sir George Young]

I can move some way in the direction that my hon. Friend advocates. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), there are a number of set-piece debates that would normally take place on or around a certain day and I am very happy to have a dialogue to see whether we can make that time available. However, it would inject undue rigidity into the parliamentary timetable if we were to allocate in advance days for the Backbench Business Committee. Given the various events that occur during a Session and the unpredictability of many of them, it would impose undue rigidity on the business of the House if we had to pre-allocate all the Back-Bench business days right at the beginning of the Session.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern. The question whether any further debate is held on the Bill depends on another place, to which it has now been returned, amended. I did announce last Thursday one day’s debate on the Welfare Reform Bill. No official representations were made against what I had planned, and there was no Division yesterday on the programme motion. There were three separate debates yesterday, every single Lords amendment was considered, and we had already had some two days on Report, so it was not as if the House was addressing these issues for the first time. My view is that, in the context of Commons’ consideration of Lords amendments of other Bills, a one day debate was adequate, and that its structure enabled debates to take place on all the important Lords amendments.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I agree with the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). If the House had divided on the programme motion, I would have voted against it—the House’s view on it should have been tested. However, I am afraid that the official Opposition did not seek to divide the House, so the Leader of the House cannot be blamed. That said, I hope he will consider such issues in future, because that is what was wrong with the previous Government: they did not give enough time for proper consideration of Bills. Although I support the welfare reform legislation, we should have had more time to discuss it.

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend has consistently argued for more time for debate. I am not sure whether he was in the House for last Thursday’s business questions, when I announced the provision of a one-day debate. That would have been his opportunity to make the point he has just made, which is sadly one day too late.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

There will be an opportunity next Thursday to cross-question Ministers, but the right hon. Gentleman’s proposal would go against the action that the Government have taken to appeal against the decision. He is in effect inviting us to admit, by taking the action that we do not want to take, that we have lost the appeal—[Interruption.] And I see from his body language that I have correctly identified the problem for the Government. We must simply await the outcome of the appeal.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

This week the Foreign Secretary revealed that there is a secret bunker from which the Government will be run in the event of some catastrophic and destabilising incident. Unfortunately, we do not know who would be in the bunker or who would be in charge. I should hope that the Leader of the House would make it, and for that matter his brother, the Deputy Leader of the House, but may we have next week a written statement listing all the people who would be in the bunker?

[Sir George Young]

No. But I was sorry to read in Hansard that among those specifically excluded from the bunker was Mrs Bone.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

A seven-year-old boy in my constituency called Zac has a very rare cancer called neuroblastoma. As a result of help from the former Labour Health Minister Ann Keen and my local primary care trust, treatment became available in Germany and was paid for by the NHS. Recently Zac needed another life-saving operation. It was decided that the operation should be carried out by the NHS in this country, but unfortunately it was cancelled twice. In desperation, Zac’s mother took him to Germany, where he had the operation yesterday. May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Health next week, telling us what went wrong in this country and whether the parents’ costs will be reimbursed?

[Sir George Young]

I am sure the whole House hopes that Zac makes a good recovery from the operation that took place yesterday, and I will raise the matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. As my hon. Friend knows, we have made more resources available to the NHS year on year, and responsibility for funding the costs of transport from this country to Germany would normally lie with the local primary care trust. However, I will try to establish whether my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State can play a role in ensuring that the parents can maintain suitable contact with their son.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

No one who is involved in sport wants to see money go out of sport, but the question completely overlooks the economic backdrop that sits behind that. If Opposition Front Benchers are seriously going to say that the level of funding that has been invested in school sport against an economic backdrop in which £120 million is paid out in debt interest payments every day can be maintained, they should tell us what else in sport should be cut instead. I have not heard a single constructive suggestion of that sort.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the Minister welcome the National Football League’s efforts to increase the amount of American football played in this country—not at the taxpayer’s expense? Also, what position in an American football team would he play?

[Hugh Robertson]

I think I should honestly say that that is slightly outside my area of competence, but I would of course welcome any efforts in that regard, particularly efforts better to educate Ministers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I should first congratulate the hon. Lady, who since her election has demonstrated her commitment to this issue, not least during the passage of her private Member’s Bill, the Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill. As she correctly says, the coalition programme for government set out our commitment to establishing a commission to consider the West Lothian question, and my hon. Friend the Minister who has responsibility for political and constitutional reform updated the House in a written statement in September. The Government intend to publish the make-up and terms of reference of the commission shortly.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Deputy Leader of the House obviously could not list all the Government’s parliamentary reform achievements because that would take up a great deal of parliamentary time. One that he missed was the commitment to introduce a Business of the House Committee. When will that happen, and what process will the House undertake to scrutinise it? Will he define “shortly” if he uses that word in his response?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Time simply does not permit us to set out all the important reforms that this Government have introduced to the House, and there is much still to be done. One of those things is the establishment of the House Business Committee. We are clearly committed to doing that during the third year of this Parliament, and are happy to ensure that that is the case. We are looking forward to introducing proposals after we have listened to those on both sides of the House who have an interest in the matter.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reinforcing a suggestion that was made earlier, and I am pleased to hear about the prosperity of the shopping centre in Kettering. He is a member of the Backbench Business Committee and is probably better placed than I am to organise a debate on high street shops between now and the time when the Government respond. I hope he will therefore look sympathetically on colleagues who come to him with such a request, in view of the statement he has just made.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Can we have a statement from the Leader of the House next week on an important issue? The Government have refused until now to say who would take over if the Prime Minister were incapacitated, and after last week’s performance some of us would be very worried if it were the Deputy Prime Minister, in case he was in a sulk. Will the Leader of the House tell us who would take over? Would it be the Deputy Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary or perhaps Mrs Bone?

[Sir George Young]

I think Mrs Bone might be towards the bottom of the list of possible successors, admirable though her qualities of leadership might be. My hon. Friend has asked me this question before and I refer him to the answer I gave on that earlier occasion.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

This is indeed a conundrum. We are misaligning the calendar of the House of Commons with the fiscal year. We have managed to cope historically, but I do not have an answer. I would have liked deeper consideration of the proposals in a form that could be properly debated, rather than to find ourselves confronted with these motions on the Order Paper. I genuinely understand the Government’s problems. I do not wish to be obstructive, but I think it important to take some time to review what are, after all, arrangements that have been in place for many hundreds of years.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The shadow Minister is making a powerful speech. Is not one of the dangers—we hear it often—that the Government want to do something on the surface for very good reasons, but at the same time what happens strengthens the Executive and reduces the power of Parliament?

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman has hit on an important point. If we have a too relaxed approach to the parliamentary calendar, we could see a repeat of the situation whereby this House of Commons is especially busy for a couple of months, but is then twiddling its thumbs for several months longer—perhaps when the Government are struggling to get their business through the other place.

The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) asked the right question: how should we proceed from here? I understand the arguments in favour of some of the proposed changes, but I wish that the Government had devoted more time and care to discussing the issues through the usual channels and allowing the problems that had been raised to be considered properly and thoughtfully.

It would be useful if the Minister answered some questions, because I remain to be persuaded. For instance, why should not consideration of a Finance Bill start a month or so later? I am not suggesting that that is necessarily the solution; I am merely speculating on what the consequences might be. We could still have a Budget in March, but proceedings on the Finance Bill proper could start immediately after the Queen’s Speech in May, at the beginning of the new Session. That might be preferable to a Committee stage taking place for a couple of weeks immediately after the March Budget, followed by an elongated break and then a return to the Committee stage about halfway through the clauses that had previously been under consideration. There is, of course, virtue in avoiding a disruptive period of down time in the middle of a Committee stage. I should like to know whether the Government and, indeed, the Procedure Committee have thought about that.

Will the Minister elaborate on the proposals in motion 2 on carry-over of Ways and Means legislation? He has not chosen simply to amend Standing Order No. 80A to remove the reference to Ways and Means. Instead, an attempt seems to have been made to copy and paste carry-over provisions in respect of other Bills into a new Standing Order relating specifically to Ways and Means and money Bills. As far as I can see, however, various elements have not been transposed: for example, Standing Order No. 80A(3), which provides for no more than one Bill to be subject to a carry-over motion, and (4), which prevents a carry-over motion to apply to a Bill carried over from a previous Session. There seems to be nothing technically in place to prevent a Finance Bill that has been carried over from one Session from being carried over again to another. I accept that such a development may be very unlikely, but I do not understand why it was not covered in the copy-and-paste exercise. It could be described as the Schleswig-Holstein question squared, and I should be grateful if the Minister could seek some inspiration in order to clarify the point.

I have heard the Minister argue about the move to the automatic Third Reading of Finance Bills on the same day as Report each year. He says that that it has been happening for 100 years—which, according to my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), may mean that it is too early to tell whether it is working. Even if it is normal practice, the Government have at least had the courtesy to table a motion seeking the House’s permission, rather than assuming that Third Reading shall always take place on the same day as Report. However, I feel that the practice may erode the purpose of Third Readings as a distinct stage in the passage of legislation. It may be entirely pragmatic, but although I am willing to be persuaded otherwise, I do not think that consequences of some of these changes have been properly thought through.

Can the Minister explain the rationale for the omission of the backstop date applying to the three days allotted to the consideration of estimates? I understand that he is changing the date from 5 August following line-of-sight discussions after the passage of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011—that makes sense—but why not simply shift the date forward to February or March rather than omitting it altogether?

The Minister also said that he proposed to put back the “roll-up” day for the modification of estimates by only five or six weeks—to, I believe, 18 March—which strikes me as a fairly arbitrary choice. He also touched on the fact that we would lose one of those modification days, as the number would be reduced from three to two. It is a small point, but, again, I wonder whether it should have been considered in more detail.

I have total respect for the Procedure Committee and its Chairman, who engaged in informal discussions with the Leader of the House about the proposals and did not object to them, but—with the greatest respect—I wish that the proposals had been subjected to more adequate scrutiny, and to some form of challenge or review. There have been no public hearings or discussions, and no report has been provided to enable parliamentarians to digest and consider the proposals.

I believe that the changes require serious consideration, because they could have profound and unintended constitutional consequences. I have not yet been convinced by the Minister that we need to rush them through before the Christmas recess, although I shall wait to hear what he has to say. He has, in a statesmanlike way, withdrawn motion 7, and I wonder whether it would be wise for him also to seek to withdraw the carry-over proposals. Perhaps he could ask the Procedure Committee to consider the issues relating to those proposals in more detail, because, as yet, I am not fully persuaded that it would be responsible to support them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon; he is not sitting where I expected to find him. He made an important point about the advent in due course of a House business committee. We are looking at that, as we said we would, but even under existing arrangements it is open to any Select Committee, through the Backbench Business Committee, to seek time on the Floor of the House to debate a motion relating to departmental spending plans. The great advantage of that method is that the time constraints and procedural limitations arising from estimates procedure are absent.

The hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms) asked why, during estimates day debates, we talk about Select Committee reports on matters that are either at some distance from or fairly peripheral to the essential element, which is scrutiny of Government accounts. Although that is a good question, it is one for another day, as it does not fall within the narrow confines of the motion.

I am grateful to the Chair of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), for his assistance. The idea that this is somehow a rushed process, when we put the proposals before that Committee for its consideration back in February and it is now, let me remind the House, December, or that we did not think of these things in advance, when we passed the proposals for consideration before the announcement of the change to the sessional timetable, is something of a nonsense. These are matters on which we needed the advice of the House; we have received that advice through the Procedure Committee, and that is why the motion has been brought before the House.

[Mr Bone]

Were the usual channels consulted and is there agreement? If there is agreement between the usual channels, I have some concerns.

[Mr Heath]

I of course have no idea what goes on in the usual channels, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me that it is far more important that a Select Committee of this House has had the opportunity to comment on proposals that affect the scrutiny of Government business by the House. Not only was the Procedure Committee consulted, but it agreed unanimously that the change would assist scrutiny by the House and would in no way diminish the opportunities for Members to have their say on Government business.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

May I welcome the hon. Lady to her debut at business questions? Of course we understand the absence of the shadow Leader of the House, who is in her constituency.

On the date of Prorogation and the Queen’s Speech, I repeat what I have said in previous questions—we will announce those in due course. We have a legislative programme going through both Houses, and when that programme has made good progress we will be able to announce the dates of Prorogation and the Queen’s Speech.

The hon. Lady somewhat devalued the debates between now and Christmas that I have just announced, including an Opposition day, which she thinks is of no consequence at all. There is an important debate on the economy on Tuesday and some important debates will be chosen by the Backbench Business Committee. I am sure that she did not mean to insult the subjects chosen by that Committee by implying that they are not of any importance to the House.

On the ministerial code, I look forward to the debate on Monday; the Backbench Business Committee has brought forward a motion on the subject. I repeat that we are committed to what is in the ministerial code: important announcements should be made to Parliament in the first instance.

When we set the target that the hon. Lady mentioned, we gave ourselves an extra year’s headroom, and we have now used that up, so we are still on track to meet the original target. The strategy on which we have embarked, which she criticised, has been endorsed by the International Monetary Fund, the OECD, the Bank of England and all credible commentators. It is the Labour party alone that wants to embark on a reckless series of policies that would put at risk the low interest rates that the country now enjoys.

I hope that the hon. Lady welcomes the announcement made a few days ago on the youth contract. The future jobs fund was an expensive use of resources, and many of the jobs were short-term posts in the public sector; those in them ended up back on the dole. Our Work programme is a much more targeted and efficient alternative.

On the issues that the hon. Lady raised about climate change, we have just had Department of Energy and Climate Change questions, in which there was an opportunity to press the Secretary of State on our commitment to our environmental targets, which I am sure that he reasserted.

I think that I have answered all the questions that the hon. Lady put to me. Her last point was to ask whether we would stop blaming other people for the problems that confront us. The Office for Budget Responsibility could not have been clearer about the reasons for the difficulties that confront the country. The first is issues in the eurozone, the second is the increase in commodity prices, and the third is the deep recession that we inherited from the Labour party.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On Wednesday, more than a third of questions were Opposition Whips’ questions with exactly the same wording. That blocks Members who really want to ask questions from getting their question on the Order Paper. I know that that is not something that the Government do. Will the Leader of the House issue a statement next week condemning the practice?

[Sir George Young]

I think that I am right in saying that my hon. Friend raised that issue with you, Mr Speaker, at the end of the question session. As my hon. Friend implies, it is way beyond my remit to comment on the issue, but I would say that there is no evidence at all of him ever having asked a question given to him by our Whips.

Business of the House

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for that statement.

Ahead of Remembrance Sunday, it is only right that this House records its deep debt of gratitude to the brave men and women who have served and continue to serve in our armed forces. We will remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice in services up and down the country this weekend, and we will all wear our poppies with pride.

In normal circumstances, the House rises at this time of the year for practical reasons, to make way for the beginning of a new Session and the State Opening of Parliament, but even though that has been put off until next year, we are still to have a short recess now. During the summer recess, Parliament had to be recalled the day after it rose in order to deal with the phone hacking scandal, and then it had to be recalled a second time to deal with the riots. With no Government in Greece and contagion spreading to Italy, does the Leader of the House think that it is right for Parliament to take a break just as we face the biggest economic crisis of our lifetimes—

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

You all voted for it.

[Ms Eagle]

It was voted for before those events. Is the Leader of the House making contingency plans for a recall to deal with the worsening economic and political situation in Europe?

Given that the right hon. Gentleman has already helpfully announced all the recess dates for next year, will he now tell us the date of the rearranged Queen’s Speech? With crucial elections taking place countrywide on 3 May 2012, and with the Easter recess taking place between 27 March and 16 April, I am sure that he would not wish to put Her Majesty in a position where the ceremony of a State Opening runs up against election purdah. Our Head of State should not be used in a pre-election stunt by this Government, especially in her diamond jubilee year, so I hope that the right hon. Gentleman can reassure me on that important point.

The fact is that there should be a new Queen’s Speech next week, not next year. If one were happening now, the Government could start by admitting that they will have to revise their economic growth forecast down for the fourth time in 18 months, as unemployment and inflation soar and growth stalls. They ought to abandon their disastrous top-down reorganisation of our NHS and get to grips with the fiasco engulfing Britain’s border controls, and if the Chancellor had any sense he would swallow his pride and unveil a plan B to rescue our stagnating economy.

On the shambles at our borders, will the Leader of the House confirm to the House that the information given to the three inquiries that the Home Secretary has announced so far into those events will be published, so that we can get to the truth of what happened? Does he agree that that is especially important given that the former head of the border force has directly contradicted the account that the Home Secretary gave to the House and to the Home Affairs Committee?

The Rio plus 20 summit, the biggest meeting on the environment in 20 years, has been moved to avoid a clash with the diamond jubilee celebrations and to allow the attendance of all 54 Commonwealth leaders, but, despite the Prime Minister’s pre-election pledge to lead the “greenest Government ever”, we hear this week that he does not plan to attend. Does the Leader of the House agree that, by not attending, the Prime Minister is failing to show any leadership at all on climate change, despite his pre-election posturing and husky-hugging photo calls? Is it not now clear that the Government’s green credentials are being put in the bin quicker than the constituency correspondence of the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin)?

Speaking of privacy, I note that in the run-up to James Murdoch’s second appearance before the Culture Media and Sport Committee this morning, it has become clear that at least one Committee member has been subject to covert surveillance by News International. We know also from the comments of former members of the Committee that they were initially reluctant to pursue the phone hacking scandal with full rigour because they feared that they would be targeted in exactly the same way. Did the Prime Minister know about that when he decided to give Andy Coulson a job at the heart of Downing street? If not, why not? Given those extremely disturbing developments, which touch directly on the rights of Members of this House to pursue the truth without fear of intimidation, can we have a debate on Select Committee powers?

[Sir George Young]

I endorse what the hon. Lady said at the beginning of her remarks. Many of us will be at Remembrance day services on Sunday, and I am grateful to the House for enabling a portcullis to be prepared that Members of Parliament can insert in the wreath. I commend the Royal British Legion for its work in making that facility available.

On next week’s business, discussions took place through the usual channels on the Adjournment of the House on Tuesday and the House has voted on the matter. I say to the hon. Lady that if she compares the first two years of this Parliament with the first two years of the previous Parliament, she will find that we are sitting longer than our predecessor. It is also the case that we are regularly sitting in September. We sat in September last year and this year and we will do so next year, whereas we did not sit in September in the previous Parliament, so it is not the case that the House is not sitting as long as it has done.

I announced the dates of the Easter recess well in advance. We did not get the date of the 2010 Easter recess until a fortnight before it happened. The Queen’s Speech will be announced in the usual way. I hope that the hon. Lady will encourage good progress to be made in the other place with the Government’s legislative programme. I made a statement, I think, last year on the fact that the Queen’s Speech will be held in May to coincide with the fixed election dates of every five years, so that matter has already been dealt with. The Chancellor will make his statement on November 29, which will include the Office for Budget Responsibility’s updated forecast.

The hon. Lady asked about the reports referred to in yesterday’s debate. The chief inspector’s report will be made public, as the Home Secretary confirmed yesterday. The other two reports have data protection issues concerning disciplinary matters and will not be made public. On the related matters of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Leveson, it makes sense to await the outcome of the Leveson inquiry and the current DCMS report.

On Select Committee powers, we are committed to publishing a draft privilege Bill, which will be an opportunity for the House to consider issues of privilege. I anticipate that Select Committee powers will be embraced in that draft Bill.

[Mr Bone]

I did not support next week’s closure of Parliament, but I suggest that the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) did. Given what is happening in the eurozone and the fact that interest rates are very high for Italian bonds, it appears that the euro is on its last legs. If the euro collapses next week, will the Leader of the House recall Parliament so that we can debate that joyful occasion?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend will know that the Prime Minister made a statement following the G20 meeting earlier this week. The House normally requires two days’ notice to be recalled, and as we are not sitting for only two days, I am not sure that I can respond positively to his request.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

The Leader of the House was asked—

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

1. What progress has been made in implementing the Prime Minister's policy to hold more free votes in Parliament.

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

The Government are committed to strengthening the opportunities for hon. Members to hold the Executive to account. We have introduced a number of measures to increase Back Benchers’ power, including establishing the Backbench Business Committee, helping to facilitate the election of Select Committee Chairs and members, extending Select Committee powers over public sector appointments and relinquishing the Executive’s power to call general elections.

[Mr Bone]

I obviously did not make my question clear enough; I was talking about free votes. Quite rightly, the Government have reformed a lot in Parliament and have done a very good job, but as a reformer, here is just a suggestion: between now and the end of the Session, could we have free votes in Committees to test out what the Prime Minister promised us in May 2009 and see how it works?

[Sir George Young]

For my hon. Friend, every vote is a free vote. The speech that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made referred to Public Bill Committees and suggested not total free votes but more free votes; and we have had more free votes in the House on certain issues which, in the previous Parliament, were whipped. Having said that, I hope my hon. Friend will understand that most of us got here wearing a party label, and that it is wholly legitimate for the party to expect some loyalty to the manifesto on which the Member stood.