All-party Parliamentary Groups

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Tim Loughton

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

All right, the figure may be 10 if I have missed one out, but, in hurriedly putting some notes together, I could remember nine.

I chair the APPG for children, which is a substantial group. Over many years, it has produced some reports that have led to changes in the law, and I do not think that anybody is going to challenge the legitimacy of that. I chair the 1001 critical days group, or the APPG on conception to age two—first 1001 days. That was the genesis of the Government’s “best start” policy, brought in by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), which has played an important part in early years provision. I chair the APPG on archaeology, which briefs parliamentarians on changes to the law regarding the influence of archaeology on the environment, agricultural matters and cultural matters, and it is very active.

I chair the British Museum APPG, which met only yesterday. It has an important job, given that it was this House that established the British Museum back in the 18th century. When there are serious challenges ahead—the future of collections such as the Elgin marbles, for example—this House must have a voice. I chair the APPG for Armenia, which I took on reluctantly from my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) because he was a Minister again. I was told there would be very little going on, and within a few weeks Azerbaijan invaded Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia became a very hot topic. I have virtually weekly conversations with the ambassador and others on this subject, so it is an active group.

I chair the reformed Wilton Park group, an important foreign affairs melting pot financed by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I chair the all-party group on mindfulness, which has done so much good for the mentality, mental health and camaraderie of Members in this House since its formation about 10 years ago, with the strapline of “disagreeing better”; that is very relevant, and it is one of the more active groups. I chair the all-party group on Tibet, which has been absolutely essential to the whole issue of China’s abuse of human rights not just in Tibet but in Xinjiang and beyond.

I chair, too, the all-party group on photography. I took that role on after the murder of our former colleague Sir David Amess. Because I was the next named officer, very shortly after his murder I was, disgracefully, contacted by the registrar to say, “You must have an EGM within 30 days to appoint a new chair,” completely oblivious to the circumstances of the loss of our previous chair. That was how I got to take on that role. The group exists largely to organise the annual photography exhibition, which Mr Speaker very kindly supports and will be attending again later in the autumn. So those are my interests—and there is apparently a tenth one that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) will tell me about. I will therefore automatically be caught under these rules, so I have a double interest.

I do not criticise the report, although I disagree with some of its findings, but I think it has gone largely under the radar and many Members are going to be very surprised if and when it goes through that they will be impacted. I absolutely take the point from my right hon. Friend the Veterans Minister, who I am delighted is here to defend these measures today, that the all-party group system is an important part of Parliament—the report itself says that as well—and that new rules should not deter all-party parliamentary groups. I am afraid they will, however, for some good reasons and for other, unintended not-so-good reasons.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

May I, through my hon. Friend, invite the Minister before he winds up to read pages 55 to 74 of the “Guide to Rules” and see how long that is going to take and how sensible it is?

[Tim Loughton]

All right then, I will, but my concern is that there has been very little profile for this report and study. I notice that only one Member of Parliament submitted written evidence and only one gave formal evidence to the Committee, and I cannot see that there were any submissions or calls to give evidence face to face from any chairs of all-party groups, let alone multiple chairs of all-party groups.

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[Tim Loughton]

Therein lies the problem. There is no common year end for all APPGs. We had the AGM of the all-party parliamentary group for photography at the beginning of this week, because yesterday was the end of our year when we had to do that by. There is another group for which I have another two months to hold it. After 16 October, when the AGMs start coming up, which groups do I then have to drop to take me down to six or below? It may be ones that I do not necessarily want to drop.

The point is, why are we bringing in this change at the tail end of a Parliament? This is quite a significant change and the obvious thing, surely, is to bring it in in the next Parliament, when none of the groups will exist until they are formed again if there is sufficient interest and a sufficient number of Members interested. There may be a larger number of Members required to set them up—that is a better way of doing it. At their genesis, APPGs, whether they are renewing from a previous Parliament or are genuinely new groups, need to justify the need for setting up that group. That could involve a higher threshold of Members needing to sign the form and somebody scrutinising in more detail whether it is a credible and legitimate APPG that will serve some positive purpose for the House.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

This may be slightly unconventional, but what we are dealing with actually matters to the House. Would it be possible, during this debate, for the Minister and the Whip to consult with the Leader of the House, the official Opposition and the Chair of the Standards Committee, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), to see whether it is possible for us not to make a decision on the motion today, but to come back to the issue in September? That would still allow whatever timescale is needed, and would allow more MPs to be aware of the implications.

We also have to hear from the Chairman of the Standards Committee, which will tell us more, but it might be sensible if the Government, the Opposition and the SNP considered not coming to a decision, having the debate and then coming back in September when minds will be clearer and more MPs know what is going on.

[Tim Loughton]

The Father of the House, my constituency neighbour, makes a very helpful suggestion. I do not understand the rush in any case. As the motion stands, I cannot support it. It would be a bit unusual if we had to force a Division on it— I am not one who usually likes to have Divisions on reports by the Standards Committee. There is a need for change—I absolutely agree—but I think we are going to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There will be damage and harm done to APPGs, which is specifically what the Minister says he does not want to happen and goes against the thrust of a report that wants APPGs to continue to play their very important role.

There are other details in the new rules, for example putting up the quorum for an AGM from five to eight. We all know it is often difficult to get five MPs to attend a meeting to form a quorum because of the competing priorities in this place, and unwitting MPs are literally dragged in from the cafés to boost numbers. Again, I am not entirely sure what that is aiming to achieve. We have the idea of having outside chairs to chair these AGMs, but who will those people be? Will Mr Speaker have to create another pool of chairs or whatever? Again, I will leave that for the hon. Member for Rhondda, if he is going to explain more in his speech.

In conclusion, I support reform of the all-party groups, because there has been abuse, they are open to abuse and we do not need as many as there are. However, we do need a great many of them and we need greater transparency in how they operate. I fear that some of the detail around the implementation of these rules, though well intended, will undoubtedly have the result that many APPGs will not be able to continue in their current form, and this House will be at a loss for it. That is why I air those points in good faith.

Having had some experience of being chair or holding other offices of all-party groups over the years, I can say that the report is a good report, but in its detail it is still lacking. I would like the Minister and others to agree that further work needs to be done to come back with a more suitable solution. Preferably, the whole lot will be put into the next Parliament, which will probably not be that far away, so that we can start afresh without people involved in all-party groups now being unwittingly penalised for it.

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[Sir Peter Bottomley]

That is potentially helpful. I am grateful, and the House will be as well. If the transitional arrangements concentrated on foreign Governments, or significant commercial beneficiaries, effectively supporting groups, that would be understood. It is the other parts that I do not understand. I say that as someone who was asked to chair the Austria all-party parliamentary group when Angus Robertson became leader of the SNP group at Westminster and felt that he could not do it. I stood in and did it, and I remain the chair of that group. In co-operation with the Austrian embassy, which provides no money and no resources, we welcome Austrians here. I guess that alternative arrangements for some functions of that kind could be made quite easily within the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

I am chair of the BBC all-party parliamentary group because one of our colleagues became the interim Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. To keep the all-party group going, given the importance of being able to hear from the BBC and liaise with it on controversial and non-controversial issues, I thought that it was important to stand in.

I am, I think, the chair or co-chair of 12 groups. I am the person the hon. Member for Rhondda referred to as being an officer of more than 80 groups. I could quite cheerfully take him and the House through each of the groups and why I am a member of them. [Hon. Members: “No!”] I will not go through them all, but I will give some illustrative examples.

I am the parliamentary warden of St Margaret’s Church on Parliament Square. I saw the lights on one evening and went into a service, which was the 12-step addiction service. All kinds of people with addictions, whether alcohol, gambling, sex, stealing or whatever else, were giving their witness. That gave me an interest in 12-step recovery programmes and, when a Member of the House of Lords asked whether I would help to set up an all-party group, I agreed. That is one of the groups of which I am a co-chair and registered contact, and I think it is worthwhile. The idea that we would necessarily get four members together at the same time or have 20 people registering as members is unlikely, but the work done by that group is important to all kinds of people inside the House, both Members and staff, and outside it.

I was once asked by Tristan Garel-Jones, a humanist, whether I, a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee who had been a trustee of Christian Aid and chairman of the Church of England Children’s Society, would be prepared to get a humanist group going. I said I would; I said that I was not a humanist, but it seemed to me that it was a line of thought that deserved some kind of parliamentary opportunity. The group has since grown and I am no longer a member of it.

I could go through the various other groups, but there are two that I am keenest on. The first is the group on leasehold and commonhold reform, where for more than 10 years, working first with Jim Fitzpatrick and now with the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), and with the help of the campaigning charity Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, we have fought to look after the interests of 6 million residential leaseholders. Even in the last couple of days we have had success with the Financial Conduct Authority on trying to ensure that those people are not ripped off on insurance, commissions and the like. That group can get large numbers of Members interested, but not get them all together at the same time.

The same applies to the group on park homes, which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) has been in charge of for a long time with Sonia McColl, one of the campaigners. To show the kind of interests that we were up against, when her mobile home was being moved from one place to another, it was stolen.

I have some incredible things going on. If I were brought down to six chairmanships, I would not be able to do half the good that I do, and I do not always know which group will become important. When one of my hon. Friends became a Minister, he asked if I would take on, with the Astronomer Royal, the group on dark skies. We are co-leaders of the world in astronomy, and it is important to have parliamentary interest, so that Members of the Lords and Commons who are interested can come to meetings and we can liaise with outside groups.

I think very few of the groups I am involved in—although there are some—would not do worse if I were not interested. I say this to the Government, to those on the Front Benches and to the SNP: it is not necessary for this motion to pass. We have been told it does not matter to Parliament, because the Committee itself can set the rules, but it is possible to get through to the beginning of the next Parliament with suitable transition arrangements that are variations of what is on page 2 of the guide to rules.

[Tim Loughton]

I think the compromises my hon. Friend is putting forward will be helpful here. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), the Chairman of the Committee, is concerned that if we pulled this motion now and deferred it to the next Parliament, it would look like a cop-out. This matter needs to be resolved by this Parliament, but it does not need to be resolved this month. I would certainly ask the Standards Committee to come back with some small revisions to parts of the rules, particularly the transitional rules that have been queried. This is not about the bigger issues of foreign intervention or transparency, because I think we all agree on those. If the Committee came back with those revisions as a matter of urgency in September, the rules could still come in on his timeline—although, frankly, I think that if we resolved the matter now but they did not come in until the next Parliament, most of the problems would go away.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I agree, and I hope others have heard what my hon. Friend said.

I refer again to pages 55 to 74 of the guide to the rules. It may or may not surprise colleagues that that is appendix 5, on data protection and APPGs—page after page after page of MPs who run groups telling MPs who may be members of the group, or who may be on a mailing list, how we handle their data. That is one of those things where we move ten places across, from one thing to another, without anybody on the Standards Committee understanding at all what was being put forward.

I do not know whether the Chair of the Standards Committee has experience of trying to administer all-party groups. Getting the detail right is important. We try to get it right, and we make some mistakes, but to add in an extra 20 pages for each group that we may be involved in, even if we are limited to six groups, gives us more than 100 pages to fill in. It is bureaucracy. If the only people who can be members of those groups are Members of Parliament, what on earth are we trying to do? That should not be there, and I hope that it is taken out.

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Tim Loughton

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

My hon. Friend knows that I support him in his endeavours. Given his response to our hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), perhaps the Government should indicate that they will consider taxation relationships between people who have a relationship but not a partnership. That may involve siblings, or someone who has stayed at home to look after an elderly parent, but the current taxation arrangements are desperately unfair. However, my hon. Friend is right to say that that issue should not necessarily complicate the Bill.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is right. This Bill is about civil partnerships, which are a different sort of relationship. I know the issue is fraught with all sorts of nuances, but my original point stands.

Just this week, the Government announced that primary legislation could be introduced to prescribe food labelling in the light of the recent death of a customer of Pret a Manger and that those measures could be in place by next summer. No Supreme Court ruling hangs over that problem with the law, so why cannot we achieve today the change under discussion with the new clause to my Bill? If the Government allowed the amended Bill to proceed, they would send a strong and reassuring message about their real intent and put their money where their mouth is.