Use of the Chamber (Youth Parliament)

Philip Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is an absolute delight, Madam Deputy Speaker, to see you in the Chair. It is something that I support very warmly. I suppose that it is fitting that you are in the Chair for this debate, as this is a subject that you have always felt very strongly about, for which you have earned the thanks of many young people. I also appreciate how keen you were to get on to my speech, which is probably a first—it will probably be the last time as well.

It is customary for me to speak in these debates on the sittings of the Youth Parliament. It is an unexpected pleasure for us to have the opportunity to debate this motion; earlier today, it appeared unlikely.

It is important to set out the background to how we have ended up in this situation. As many hon. Members will know, I do not support this state of affairs. The use of our Parliament came about as a result of a promise made by the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to some young people at an event. He made an off-the-cuff promise that he would allow them to use the House of Commons Chamber for their annual sitting. It was a promise that he was in no position to make, as it was not his Chamber to give up. It was typical of him. He would say anything and do anything in order to curry favour with a few people so that he could get a few extra grubby votes.

Gordon Brown made a promise that he could not deliver on, could not keep and was not his to make. Basically, he asked Parliament to dig him out of a hole that he had created for himself. As his party had a majority, it decided to pass what was called the “Spare Gordon Brown any embarrassment” motion, in order to allow the Youth Parliament to sit for one year only in this Chamber. It was appreciated that it was quite extraordinary and not really in order.

Therefore, for one year only, we had the “Let’s dig Gordon Brown out of a hole” motion to allow the Youth Parliament to sit here. The House divided on the issue and the motion went through, because of the Labour majority at the time. But it was done on the clear understanding that it would be a one-off occasion. The reason why some of us are against this annual routine is that it brings inconsistency to our proceedings.

I must say at the outset that I am a huge supporter of the Youth Parliament and the people who contribute to the debates. In fact, I have attended Youth Council debates in Bradford Council chamber. To be perfectly frank, the quality of the debate has often been higher than that which normally takes place there. I have attended the Youth Parliament debates in this Chamber as well, and know that no one could argue about the quality of the debate and the passion with which people spoke; no one has a problem with that. This is about not whether Members are in favour of, or against, the Youth Parliament, but whether it is appropriate for this Chamber to be used by other groups.

As the former Prime Minister made a promise that he should not have done, he was dug out of a hole. What I do not understand is why it is only the Youth Parliament that can sit on these Benches like Members of Parliament. My fear is: if it is fine for the Youth Parliament to sit and use these Benches, why not other groups that want to meet and congregate and have a debate here? The Muslim Council of Britain may want to have a debate in the House of Commons Chamber. We have always had a rule that these Benches are only able to be used by MPs and that it is a great privilege to be here. When my constituents come and visit the House of Commons, there is a big sign up that specifically tells them that they are not allowed to sit on these Benches. They are told quite politely by the staff here that these Benches are for MPs only and that they are not allowed to sit on them. If Members of the Youth Parliament can sit on them, why can my constituents not sit on them?

What is the difference? If the Muslim Council of Britain wants to use this Parliament, why can we say no to the Muslim Council of Britain but not to the Youth Parliament? On what basis is it right for one organisation to use it but not another? If one of the parish councils in my constituency decides that this Chamber would be a rather nice setting for its annual general meeting, why should it not be allowed to meet here, given that the Youth Parliament is? There is absolutely no logic or consistency to the current arrangement. Either we let other people use these Benches or we do not. My preference is that we do not, but I do not see why we should have one rule for everybody else and a separate rule for the Youth Parliament.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am sorry that the debate started so quickly that I missed the beginning of my hon. Friend’s speech, but I probably heard it last year, the previous year and 10 years ago, because it is the same speech every time. The only thing that is different about all the groups that he has mentioned is that all of them are 18 and plus, and have the opportunity to vote. Those Members of the UK Youth Parliament who come here do not have the opportunity to vote or stand in elections. That is what makes them different, amongst many other things.

[Philip Davies]

If my hon. Friend is chastising me for being consistent, that is a chastisement I will take. I know it is a novel concept in politics to actually stick to your guns about something and believe in something and not change your opinion in response to the prevailing political wind. My hon. Friend may think it is a great thing to change one’s mind every five minutes, depending on the prevailing political mood. I rather think that being consistent is a virtue in politics, even if he disagrees.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Should we not do everything we can to encourage more younger people to be interested in this place, and to prevent them from thinking of it as something distant that they should not be involved in?

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful for the interventions of the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend. We were told originally that the Youth Parliament was different because we needed to get more young people interested in politics. By definition, the Members of the Youth Parliament are already interested in politics and political issues and are taking the lead on these things. If we want to find a group of young people that are not already involved in the political process and inspire them to get involved, we should invite everybody other than the Youth Parliament to come and sit on these Benches, because presumably they are the ones we need to reach. Those in the Youth Parliament seem to be the last people we should invite to sit on these Benches if our reason for doing so is to get more people involved and interested in politics. So I am afraid the hon. Gentleman’s arguments disintegrate straightaway.

What we have here is the usual rather sad charade of middle-aged Members of Parliament trying to curry favour with the youth and with the young vote. They ask themselves, “How can we give youthful voters the impression that we are trendy?” Basically, one way is to advocate motherhood and apple-pie tripe like this. They think that by doing these sorts of things they will prove that they are in touch with the youth and are really trendy, and that young voters will all go out and vote for them. I do not think young people are as stupid as hon. Members seem to think they are—that just because they are allowed to sit here once a year, they will all go flooding in and vote for those Members when the election comes. Hope is triumphing over reality, and it does not make them look trendy at all.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one way to call out those people who are trying to court favour is to give the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds? Then they can make their own decision.

[Philip Davies]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not want to test your patience by going off on a tangent about the merits of votes for 16 and 17-year-olds. I do not agree with giving them the vote; I make that clear. I do not want to dodge the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I may be right in saying that Madam Deputy Speaker probably would not tolerate a lengthy debate on that. I think we are really debating whether the Youth Parliament should sit in the Chamber, so I do not want to incur Madam Deputy Speaker’s wrath so early in her career as Madam Deputy Speaker. There will be plenty of other occasions when that happens.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way to allow me to curry favour with youth, which I am always aiming to do. I just wonder whether he might be a convert to votes for 16 and 17-year-olds, because on the argument we heard earlier, that would mean that they did not need to come here to have the Youth Parliament.

[Philip Davies]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes a telling point. However, the problem with his point is that that will indicate some kind of logic on the part of those people who so strongly advocate that the Youth Parliament should sit in this Chamber. He has probably missed out on its implication—that once 16 and 17-year-olds had the vote, and therefore that group of people did not need to sit in this Chamber for the Youth Parliament, a group of 14 and 15-year-olds would be exclusively invited to sit here because they did not have the vote, and they could sit here until enough weight built up behind their campaign to grant 14 and 15-year-olds the vote, and so on.

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for his earlier intervention. His argument is that members of the Youth Parliament should be able to sit here because they cannot vote. My children are 12 and 10, so they cannot vote either. I will happily go along to my children’s school and suggest, following my hon. Friend’s logic, that they should be able to have their annual debating competition here. They are not allowed to vote and we want to encourage them to get involved in politics, so presumably my hon. Friend would be all in favour of that.

[Tim Loughton]

Of course, my hon. Friend is talking rubbish. The main thrust of my argument was that those young people are not entitled to stand for election, in contrast to the members of all the other bodies he trotted out in support of his argument.

[Philip Davies]

I am surprised that my hon. Friend thinks that regurgitating his argument is absolute rubbish. I was trying to make that point myself, in a spirit of compromise and consensus. He said in his latest intervention that Members of the Youth Parliament should be able to sit here because they cannot stand for election. My 12 and 10-year-old sons cannot stand for election, so presumably, following his logic, and given that we are trying to encourage more young people to get involved in politics, their school should be able to hold its annual debating competition here. Presumably that meets his criteria.

[Drew Hendry]

The hon. Gentleman is incredibly generous to let me intervene twice. Does he agree that if the public pay for a facility, they should get maximum access to it, and that we should be allowing people to use the public buildings they have paid for?

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I may not agree with him, but I admire his consistency. If I follow his argument correctly, he is suggesting that any group should be able to use the Chamber if they think that would be worthwhile—for example, a parish council holding its annual meeting. He argues that they paid for it, so they should be able to use it. I do not agree with him, but I admire his consistency. What I cannot understand is the argument that nobody should be able to use the Chamber because it is absolutely sacrosanct and only Members of Parliament who have been elected should have the right to sit on these Benches—apart from members of the Youth Parliament. There is absolutely no logic to it. At least the hon. Gentleman’s position is logical.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I was intrigued by the idea that people should be able to come here and debate if they are not allowed to stand for Parliament. Were that argument to be taken further, I wonder whether we would allow criminals to come here, or Members of the House of Lords.

[Philip Davies]

I do not want to go into the history of the expenses scandal, but many people would argue that criminals did sit on these Benches for a while, so I am not sure that my hon. Friend should push that particular line too hard, because that has already happened. My hon. Friend’s point is that we could have an annual prisoners’ outing to Parliament so that they could sample democracy and be inspired to engage in the political process once they leave prison. It is the same argument. I suspect that the problem with that argument, however, is that whereas those Members who are such strong supporters of the Youth Parliament sitting here think that they can get a few grubby votes by supporting it, they would probably think, even though the logic is the same, that allowing prisoners to sit here would probably not go down so well with their constituents. This is not about high principle at all; it is about people who are prepared to say anything and do anything to get a few cheap votes back in their constituencies at the next election. They think that the best way of doing that is to say, “I am all for the youth. I think that young people should be able to sit in the House of Commons Chamber.”

But why just the Youth Parliament? That is what I want to know. What about all the other young people who would love to use these Benches to sample the atmosphere and further their political ambitions? Why are they excluded? Why are we being so exclusive? What is wrong with all the other young people out there whom we want to inspire?

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman join me in an approach to the Speaker to discuss broader access to this Chamber for other groups to iron out the anomaly he is talking about?

[Philip Davies]

I want to iron out the anomaly but in a rather different way from the hon. Gentleman, I fear. His way of dealing with the anomaly is to allow all and sundry to use the Chamber; my way is to stop the one group of people who are currently allowed to use it.

We had the Youth Parliament taking part in debates in Parliament before they were allowed to use this Chamber. I think they used Westminster Hall on one occasion. They may even have used the House of Lords, and perhaps Committee Room 14. I am very supportive of that; I have no problem with it whatsoever. One of the arguments made for them moving out of the House of Lords and Westminster Hall was, “Well, they’ve already been there. They’re bored now—they want to go somewhere else.” In that case, why do they need to come and sit in here year in, year out? If they were so bored after just one sitting in the House of Lords, and they want to be on this sort of merry-go-round, they can find somewhere else to go. They must surely be bored with sitting in here by now. I am certainly bored with them sitting in here, and I am sure that they must be too, so let us relieve them of their boredom and let them find somewhere else.

Given that we are having to decide whether we stay here in future years, we will probably end up in the ridiculous position of having the UK Youth Parliament still sitting in here while we have been kicked out. That is probably how politically correct we have got these days. No one will be prepared to tell them that they cannot sit in here any more. We will all be told that we have to move, but they will still be here once a year, every single year, using these facilities. Perhaps they could do us all a favour and go away to try to find somewhere else that we might be able to use ourselves when we might have to be removed. They could do a public service by going out over the next four or five years and looking at different locations to see how they work for these grand debates. That would be much more use than having them sit here.

I do not intend to call a Division; I would not want to test the patience of my hon. Friends in that way. However, we should not just be nodding this through and saying it is absolutely fine for one group of people to be allowed to use these Benches every year without any thought. Let us have a proper rationale. My constituents are not allowed to sit on these Benches when they come to visit Parliament. I have not yet heard anybody argue that they should be; everyone is quite happy for that to continue. Why is this narrow group of people be treated—

[Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)]

It has been fascinating listening to these speeches, but a convoluted argument is being made. Why can we not do one nice thing for the youth? They are very serious about coming here. It is a terrific honour to sit on these Benches, and it really shows that they are interested and encourages them from then on. We should make it a one-off. Let us not bother with any of the arguments and just let it happen.

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman perfectly sums up the argument—let us just curry favour with a few young people. But why just this group of people? There is no logic to it whatsoever. Either one is allowed to sit on these Benches or one is not. He must accept that there is no logic to his position; it is just a load of motherhood and apple pie guff.

I shall draw my remarks to a close because I do not wish to test the patience of my colleagues any further, but it is important to put on the record the fact that not everybody is happy with this. I am sure it will be agreed, and I genuinely hope that the people who come to speak on that day enjoy themselves and feel inspired to come to Parliament, but I do not accept that the only way a young person—

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Will my hon. Friend give way before he finishes?

[Philip Davies]

Because it is my hon. Friend, I will.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I thought I should assure him that he is not testing the patience of the House; the House is thoroughly enjoying his speech. He may not know that while he has been speaking the only people he has been inconveniencing are the Executive, because Back Benchers and Parliamentary Private Secretaries are now on a one-line Whip.

[Philip Davies]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for telling me about the whipping advice. I shall seek him out more often. It may well pay dividends for everybody to know that I know the whipping arrangements.

I do not think it is right to say that the only way we can inspire people to get involved in politics is to allow them to sit in here and have a debate. When I was first elected to Parliament in 2005, it was an absolute honour and privilege—[Interruption.] It absolutely still is a privilege, but to be able to sit on these Benches for the first time was an absolute privilege and an honour, and I thought it was very special.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I would like to finish, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Graham Jones]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could finish with this thought: did he canvass the young people of Shipley and ask them for their views before he came here to represent them in this debate?

[Philip Davies]

I know that the hon. Gentleman’s part of the world does not bother with elections, but Shipley, in common with most other places, had an election a few weeks ago. It obviously bypassed the hon. Gentleman, who clearly does not have to worry about trifling matters like elections. What was put to the test in our election was whether I or somebody else should represent the people of Shipley in this House. I can report—I do not think I would be here otherwise—that 50% of the people of the Shipley constituency voted for me, and I am therefore exercising my democratic right to represent them.

[Graham Jones]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

Now that the hon. Gentleman has learned what elections are all about, I will give way to him again.

[Graham Jones]

My question was whether the hon. Gentleman had asked the young people in his constituency. The voting age is 18 and I would like it to be 16, but the hon. Gentleman voted against that.

[Philip Davies]

The young people of Shipley have different views on different issues. Has the hon. Gentleman canvassed the opinion of every 16-year-old in his constituency? I suspect not, because how would he identify every 16-year-old in his constituency in order to be able to canvass them? In fact, I suspect I probably canvass more people in Shipley than he has in his constituency over the years.

[Graham Jones]

For the record, I believe that my constituency is one of the most canvassed in the country.

[Philip Davies]

In which case, it is a shame the hon. Gentleman did not realise there was an election on which to canvass a few weeks ago. I am here to represent my constituents in Parliament. If they want someone else to represent them, they know exactly what they need to do at an election and I will always respect their decision.

I thought it was a great privilege to sit here for the first time after I was elected and I do not want young people to feel blasé about the fact that they have already been here and say, “I don’t need to stand for Parliament, because I’ve already sat there—been there, seen it, done it.” It should be something that people who want to get involved in politics aspire to do: they should aspire to come to sit on these Benches and feel as proud as I did when I was first elected in 2005. I fear that this is gesture politics of the worst kind. It is motherhood and apple pie guff. I am opposed to it and I will always remain opposed to having an exemption for one single group.