Prime Minister (Replacement) Bill
Debate between Peter Bone and Steve Baker(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am grateful to Her Majesty for her consent.
I clarify that we will not be debating the merits of Mrs Bone replacing the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), as the name of my Bill might suggest, but rather the lack of clear succession should the Prime Minister become temporarily, or permanently, incapacitated to perform his duties.
I have asked on a number of occasions what procedure is in place should the Prime Minister be unable to perform his duties. Time and again, on each occasion Ministers have failed to give a substantive response, and I have been amazed at the number of different ways Ministers have dodged, ducked and dived around the question. Responses have ranged from the simply unhelpful reply from the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) that
“the Prime Minister is not incapacitated,”—[Official Report, 19 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 446.]
to the Foreign Secretary’s positively clandestine explanation that
“we do not consider it appropriate to talk about these plans in public”—[Official Report, 17 January 2012; Vol. 538, c. 597.]
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Has my hon. Friend inquired what has happened in the past?
Mr Bone
That is a good point, but I am looking to the future rather than the past as I am a very modern Conservative.
I am not in the habit of subscribing to conspiracy theories—although I do think there was somebody on the grassy knoll—but there is something strange about the Government’s refusal to state their position on the matter. Could it be that the admission that the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) is next in line to No. 10 is so scary that it would be a breach of national security should it become public knowledge?
In the terrible event of an airstrike on No. 10, we need to know instantly who would be responsible for commissioning a counter-attack. More to the point, we need the potential perpetrators of such an attack to know that we would instantly have the capability to take such decisions. It is preposterous for us to think that there would be time, or indeed the need, for a Cabinet meeting to be called to decide who is in charge. There simply would not be time because the military would need a decision as soon as possible on what action to take. It seems common sense that, in such an event, there should be a predetermined line of succession, as there is in the United States of America.
In a majority Government, there would be a clear mandate for the Deputy Prime Minister to take over, as there was when John Prescott was Tony Blair’s deputy. The same cannot be said of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam, replacing my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney. Surely it is not fitting for the leader of a party that holds less than 10% of the seats in the House of Commons, and maintains a lower approval rating than the UK Independence party, to be positioned to take over from the Prime Minister in a national emergency.
Mr Bone
Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope that none of these events takes place. My comments, of course, were entirely about the Prime Minister and which elected person should replace him.
At a time when strong leadership would be more important than ever, the last thing we should be doing is having a debate to decide who is in charge. We need a clear line of succession, and we need it now. In the United States, if the President is killed, there is a list of succession of 18 different office holders. It starts with the Vice-President; then comes the Speaker of the House. It goes all the way down to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, so even if there is a mass terrorist attack on the American leadership, it will always be clear who is in charge. That person will immediately take over responsibility for the nuclear deterrent and will be able, if necessary, to order retaliatory action. I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, but these things have to be said: if a civilian aircraft was deliberately crashed on the White House, killing the President, and other civilian aircraft were heading towards Congress, it would be clear whose decision it would be whether those aircraft should be shot down.
In the United Kingdom, we have no idea who would take over if the Prime Minister were killed. Would it be the Deputy Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary or the Cabinet Secretary? The answer is not clear. It might be an elected person. It might be the Defence Secretary, or it might be the Leader of the House. It might be the Cabinet Secretary. It might be the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. It might be the senior representative of the BBC; after all, the BBC thinks that it runs the country.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
My hon. Friend is raising some extremely serious issues, and I think that we may be mixing up a number of the functions of government. I visited RAF Coningsby recently to talk to people who were operating on quick reaction alert, and I know that when it comes to that particularly difficult and painful decision relating to airliners—which is surely one of the most unimaginably difficult decisions that a politician might have to make—there are clear and robust procedures in place, and a politician would be the decision maker at all times. I do not think that there is any question that this country always has a political decision maker in relation to our air defence.
Steve Baker
What I am saying is that a senior politician would always be involved in any such decision in the circumstances that my hon. Friend has described. I am not sure how much further I can go in terms of engagement, but I am absolutely clear about the fact that there is always a politician in that chain, and everyone involved knows who it is.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I must make it clear to the hon. Gentleman and other Members that we are not discussing emergency powers or exceptional circumstances. The purpose of the Bill is to establish the succession that would operate should the Prime Minister be incapacitated. I should like us not to range extensively over events which may be theoretical or real, and which may or may not happen in the United Kingdom to any Member of the House of Commons.
House of Commons Disqualification (Amendment) Bill
Debate between Peter Bone and Steve Baker(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Bone
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. A yes-person who always agrees with the Whips will never be a good Minister. A person has to have independent thought to be a Minister. Some members of the Cabinet voted against the Maastricht treaty—probably the most controversial issue for the Conservative party—and it did not seem to do them any harm.
Parliament was originally intended to act as a check on the Executive, and to hold them properly to account, but with the advent of the party and such concepts as party loyalty and party manifestos, Members of Parliament who put their individual judgment to one side are increasingly frequently—more often than not—treated by the Whips as little more than sheep. They are blindly herded into Division Lobbies and told to vote a particular way on a subject that they know nothing about. Whips even have the nerve to divide the groups that they look after into flocks, because they regard them as sheep. Sadly, Christopher Hollis MP had it precisely right when he said in 1946:
“On most votes it would be simpler and more economic to keep a flock of tame sheep and from time to time to drive them through the division lobbies in the appropriate number.”
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I have great sympathy with what my hon. Friend says, and I was standing in about this position in the House when I first advocated abolishing whipping. However, does he not agree that it is necessary to organise for votes, and that without whipping, or at least some system of organisation, it would be very difficult for any Government to get their business through?
Mr Bone
Unusually, I disagree with my hon. Friend. If we go back to the years of Wilberforce, or the time of the American civil war, Members of Parliament quite often campaigned and voted against the Executive’s line. The Government would lose major pieces of legislation, but the Government did not fail; they carried on. That was what Parliament was supposed to do.
Loans to Ireland Bill (Allocation of Time)
Debate between Peter Bone and Steve Baker(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Bone
Mr Speaker, you would rightly tick me off if I answered that question. That is a matter for the Second Reading debate, because it is to do with the issues in the Bill. I am expressing no view on that at the moment. However, unless we have adequate time to discuss those issues, the hon. Gentleman’s point might not be clarified.
Lack of parliamentary time cannot be an excuse for this motion. The advantage of splitting the debate over two days is that it would allow a proper debate on Second Reading today. I believe that many Members would like to take part in such a debate. It would also allow amendments to be tabled in the normal way, and enable us to have a proper debate in Committee, with time for a debate and votes on each of the amendments. There would also be time for a Third Reading debate.
I understand that the Government have tabled a manuscript amendment today, although I have not seen it. That amendment has been tabled without allowing Members the time to consider it. That just shows the weakness of this procedure. If the allocation of time motion were defeated, we would have a full Second Reading debate and the Government would have to rearrange their business to provide for the Committee stage and Third Reading. The loan would still go through, but the Bill would have been properly debated and, if necessary, amended. Defeating the allocation of time motion would not wreck the Bill; it would simply give more time for proper scrutiny so that the Bill could be improved. We have already seen that the Government have tabled a manuscript amendment. What will happen if, during the 15 minutes of the Second Reading debate, a Member decides that they want to table an amendment? They just will not have time to do it.
How does the motion fit in with the principles behind parliamentary sittings? The present timetabling of our sittings is broadly based on the Jopling reforms and encompasses three principles. It is against those three principles that we should judge the Bill today. The first is that the Government must be able to get their business through, and, within that principle, ultimately control the time of the House. Secondly, the Opposition must have the opportunity to scrutinise the actions of the Government and to improve or oppose legislation as they think fit. Thirdly—this is of more interest to me—Back-Bench Members on both sides of the Chamber should have reasonable opportunities to raise matters of concern from their constituents. A number of my constituents have contacted me with concerns about this Bill.
A major role of Members of Parliament is to scrutinise and review legislation. It is a well-known fact—I doubt that anyone in the House would disagree with this—that the better the scrutiny, the better the Bill. It is also a major role of Members of Parliament who are not members of the Executive to hold the Executive to account, whichever party or parties make up that Executive. That is one of the most important roles we have as Members of Parliament. This motion removes that role. It is appalling that the coalition Government should try to stifle that essential function. I have long campaigned for more transparency and debate in Parliament. I strongly believe in strengthening the role of the Back Bencher. The erosion of parliamentary power to scrutinise legislation has been a long-adopted approach by successive Governments. This motion, I am afraid, is a step too far. Individual Members of Parliament attach a great deal of importance to scrutiny and accountability, and problems arise when the Executive try to deny us that right.
The Government have declared that amendments must be tabled before Second Reading, which is ludicrous. They ask MPs to table amendments before we have had a chance to hear what the Minister has to say. How can MPs properly table amendments when they have not heard the details and the arguments? Despite that difficulty, 11 amendments have already been tabled. The Government were forced to produce a three-page document—I have it with me—of amendments, and another five-page document on their justification for rushing the Bill through. These documents were produced only in the last few days. How can they, and the amendments, realistically be scrutinised if the Bill goes through all its stages today? It is just not possible.
The House of Lords got rather fed up with the Commons bouncing it, so it has now come up with a procedure whereby the Government have to answer a number of questions—I think it is eight—before they can get a Bill such as this through. Those questions are printed in the explanatory notes to the Bill. Let us look at some of them for a minute, and see whether the answers hold up to scrutiny.
The first question is: “Why is fast-tracking necessary?” The notes go on to explain that the proposal is for a bilateral loan, and that the timing of the UK’s proposed loan is currently unclear. They state:
“It is necessary to fast-track the Bill so that the UK’s international partners can be confident that the bilateral loan will be implemented.”
That is an absolutely hopeless answer to the question. It does not tell us why the Bill is being fast-tracked. It is ridiculous to suggest that our international partners would think that, because we had not taken another day or two to debate the Bill, the Government were not going to proceed with the loan.
The next question is:
“What is the justification for fast-tracking each element of the Bill?”
Again, there does not seem to be an answer. The notes state:
“The Bill is a short Bill, with few substantive provisions other than to provide for sums required by the Treasury”.
Yes, the Bill is short because many of the provisions deal with statutory instruments and affirmative resolutions. It is an important Bill, but it is short because many of the provisions do not go into detail. That is exactly why we need a proper Second Reading debate. I do not think that the Government have answered that question either.
The next question is a good one:
“What efforts have been made to ensure the amount of time made available for parliamentary scrutiny has been maximised?”
The answer is:
“The Bill is being published on the same day it is introduced and arrangements are being made for amendments to be accepted in advance of second reading in the House of Commons.”
How on earth does that answer the question about making time available for parliamentary scrutiny? It is like the Prime Minister being asked a question at Prime Minister’s questions and giving an answer to a completely different one. It might be a good answer, but it is not the answer to the question that was asked.
The next thing that the Lords want to know is this:
“To what extent have interested parties and outside groups been given an opportunity to influence the policy proposal?”
The answer talks about our European Union colleagues, but the key is in the last sentence, which states that
“there has been limited opportunity to give interested parties and outside groups an opportunity to influence.”
By the Government’s own admission, they have failed in regard to that question.
The next question asks whether the Bill includes a sunset clause. The Government can argue, with some justification, that it does, because it stipulates a period of five years. It does not tell us when the loans are to be repaid, but it places a five-year limit on the period in which they can be made. That is not what is normally understood by a sunset clause, however. Sunset clauses normally stipulate that in, say, a year’s time, Parliament will look again at the legislation to see whether it is correct.
The next question is:
“Are mechanisms for effective post legislative scrutiny and review in place? If not, why do the Government judge that their inclusion is not appropriate?”
The answer states:
“The Bill provides for regular reports”.
On that one, I will give the Government a tick. So far, they have passed one of the six tests. The next question is:
“Has an assessment been made as to whether existing legislation is sufficient to deal with any or all the issues in question?”
The Government do not really answer that one. They say:
“Statutory authority for such expenditure is required in accordance with the Concordat of 1932 between the Government and the Public Accounts Committee.”
I am unclear as to what that means, but it does not seem to answer the question that has been asked. The final question is:
“Has the relevant Parliamentary committees been given to opportunity to scrutinise the legislation?”
The explanatory notes were drawn up in such haste that the spelling of the question was incorrect, but the simple answer to it, as I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) might confirm, is that no such scrutiny has taken place.
In concluding my opening remarks, I want to say a few words about what I think is wrong. Let me state to the House how this mother of Parliaments should work in relation to timings of debates. The driving principle of reform should be the redistribution of power—from the powerful to the powerless. That means boosting Parliament’s power to hold the Government of the day to account. The House of Commons’ historic functions were to vote money for Governments to spend, and to scrutinise laws. It now barely bothers with the first, and does the second extremely badly. There was a time when legislation that had been formulated after months of civil service and ministerial deliberation was sent to the House of Commons which would pore over it, shape it and send it back, get it back, look at it again and improve it some more—Bill by Bill, clause by clause, line by line. Every piece of legislation would be put under intense scrutiny. Is it legally sound? Will it be effective? Is it worth the cost?
Let us compare that with today. Let me take Members on the journey of a piece of legislation as it passes through the modern House of Commons. It is likely to have been dreamt up on the sofa of No. 10. A Bill is drafted and it is sent to the House for a couple of hours of routine debate among a few MPs. Then the bells ring, the whips are cracked and suddenly, out of nowhere, all the Members turn up to vote. More often than not, they do not even know what they are voting for. The Bill limps through. Then it goes into Committee. The Committee’s duty is to look at the detail clause by clause, but it is packed full of people that the Whips have put there. So, surprise, surprise, the Government rarely lose a vote on any of the individual points of detailed scrutiny. Then it is back to the House to do it all again—debate, bell and then vote to wave the legislation through.
Every Bill now has a programme motion setting out how much time can be spent scrutinising and debating each part. There are automatic guillotines, and the time allowed for scrutiny is set in advance, before anyone can see whether or not a particular issue is contentious or complex. Watching a Minister in the Commons drawing out one point for an hour to fill the time, to an audience of dozing Back Benchers—that is not accountability. How can the mother of all Parliaments turn itself into such a pliant child?
Unfortunately, I cannot claim credit for that last section of my speech. It was in fact from a speech on fixing broken promises delivered on 26 May 2009 by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron). I do not think that Ministers on the Front Bench today want to upset the Prime Minister. So they have an opportunity, before the conclusion of the debate, to say that they will withdraw the allocation of time motion, and that we will have proper debate.
For many years I have sat on the Back Benches imploring others to give more time for Parliament to scrutinise legislation. I believe that to be the fundamental role, not only of the Back Bencher, but of Parliament itself.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to say just how much I stand behind the Prime Minister in his remarks, which my hon. Friend has so generously shared with the House. However, does my hon. Friend agree that if this bail-out is necessary at all, it is an emergency?
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend is tempting me to enter the debate, which I am not going to do, and as time is short, I shall conclude my remarks.
Time is all we have as Back Benchers, and if that is taken away from us, so is power. I urge all parliamentarians in the House to vote against the guillotine motion.