Sittings of the House (22 March)

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

What is clear, as I said, is that in order to facilitate the House, the shape of the recess framework is the most important characteristic. We want to enable hon. Members and the House authorities to structure their future activities around relatively established dates for major recesses.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I give my right hon. Friend 10 out of 10 for publishing his original timetable well in advance, as that is a very good thing, but what has he got against Wednesdays? My view and that of my constituents is that we want to hear from the Prime Minister, especially at the start of a recess period. Why do Sessions always end on a Tuesday?

[Mr Lansley]

I will come on to that point in a moment, if I may, when I address some of the issues that the shadow Leader of the House raised at business questions.

The motion adds a further sitting day and its effect will therefore be to allow the four-day Budget debate to take place, as well as to accommodate the opportunity for the Backbench Business Committee to schedule business, including the traditional pre-recess Adjournment debate, on the last day before recess.

Sitting on an additional Friday would allow a continuation of the Budget debate but it would not be its last day, so there would be no requirement for Members to vote on that day. That is the best option to provide the balance between the certainty requested by the House, which the publication of the calendar in mid-October permitted, and the disposal of business before it, including providing the Backbench Business Committee with access to the debate opportunities that it would expect.

It may be helpful if I remind the House that there is a precedent for the proposal to sit on a Friday to allow the continuation of the Budget debate before a recess. Just last year, the House agreed to sit on Friday 23 March to continue the Budget debate, and I am not aware that any issues were raised following that sitting. The precedents go further back than that, as another occasion occurred under the last Administration on 11 April 2003.

As you said, Mr Speaker, an amendment in the name of the Opposition has been selected, which seeks to amend the motion to produce the effect that the House would sit not on Friday 22 March, but on Wednesday 27 March. I fear that the Opposition, in tabling the amendment, might just be thinking back to their time in government and imputing similar motives to this Government. I think they are wrong in that.

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady set out her reasons during business questions on 7 February. I addressed her points then, but it may be helpful for me to recap. Her first reason was that Members might already have made arrangements in their constituencies for Friday 22 March. This is valid up to the point that Members are just as likely to have made arrangements in their constituencies for Wednesday 27 March—the date proposed in the Opposition amendment. It is important to bear in mind that only those Members who wished to speak on that day in the Budget debate would be affected. Others might have commitments in their constituencies that they regard as inescapable, but on three other days they would have the opportunity, subject to catching the Speaker’s eye, to contribute to that debate. It is not a case of “speak on that Friday or lose the opportunity”.

There is a choice here, but my preference—and, I believe, the preference of Members—would be to sit on that Friday and not on the subsequent Wednesday. While the calendar is always issued with the proviso that it is subject to the progress of business, the Government are conscious that having announced dates, Members and staff might have made arrangements for the Easter recess, which it would now be inconvenient, to say the least, to change. Indeed, as I have said, the Friday would not involve the prospect of voting, and I can add that we do not intend to arrange ministerial statements for that day. Those with necessary constituency business will still be able to deal with it, which might not be the case were the House to sit on Wednesday.

The second reason given by the shadow Leader of the House was that if the House rose on a Tuesday, there could be no Prime Minister’s Question Time during that week. I do not think that anyone could accuse the Prime Minister of avoiding his duties in the House. [Interruption.] I must tell the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) that his view is contradicted by the facts. The Prime Minister has made more statements to the House per sitting day in the last Session than his predecessor, spending more than 30 hours at the Dispatch Box in so doing. He also gives evidence to the Liaison Committee, and he takes all his responsibilities to the House very seriously.

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) should take a look at the 2013 calendar that I published. It shows six occasions on which recesses have been proposed. There is the February recess, which we have already had, and there are the Easter, Whitsun, summer, conference and Christmas recesses. The plan was for the House to rise on a Tuesday on two of those occasions, on a Thursday on three of them and on a Friday on one of them. No pattern is involved; it is simply a matter of trying to ensure that each of the recesses has the right balance of time overall. A simple examination of the parliamentary calendar will show that there are no grounds for the supposition that we have avoided a Wednesday sitting.

[Mr Hollobone]

My right hon. Friend is making some very good points, and this is not a black-and-white issue, although I must add that I think that, when the rising of the House on a Tuesday can be avoided, it should rise on a Wednesday or a Thursday. However, this is not just about Prime Minister’s Question Time; it is also about all the other business of the House. It is about all the Select Committee meetings and all the sittings in Westminster Hall that take place on Wednesdays. All that business is, in effect, lost when the House rises on a Tuesday.

[Mr Lansley]

It is a matter, overall, of the number of days on which the House sits. My hon. Friend may take the view that it should sit more often. As it happens, I suspect that at the end of this year it will have sat for more days than it sat in any of the preceding four calendar years. I also think that before, for example, the Easter recess, it is preferable for us not to continue our business until Maundy Thursday.

I know that the Opposition are keen to ensure that the Government are held to account, and that is to be expected, but they really ought to focus on the substance rather than the processes. When it comes to the mechanisms of accountability, the Government are achieving greater and more meaningful scrutiny than has ever been achieved before. Let me name just a few positive developments. There is more pre-legislative scrutiny, there are many substantial debates via the Backbench Business Committee, there is the work of Select Committees and their elected Chairs that we discussed in the Chamber a couple of weeks ago, and there is extra time for scrutiny during the Report stages of Bills. Those are major changes that have shifted the balance from the Executive to the House.

I understand the Opposition’s intentions—I understand them very well—but I assure them that any fears that they may have, in reality, about lack of time for scrutiny are wholly misplaced, and I commend the motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Spellar]

I am pleased to continue the argument. I slightly regret the absence of the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), who seemed to want to intervene. Maybe he has been nobbled in the meantime.

As you will recall, Mr Speaker, before we voted I made it clear, in answer to the hon. Member for City of Chester, that the Government are responsible for their own parliamentary business. With their considerable resource, they should be able to take account of the many factors required for a proper parliamentary timetable, not least with the current absence of legislation. Because they have messed up in other areas of the legislative programme, they are not actually bursting with items to be discussed.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am greatly enjoying the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, but does he not agree with me that the Government have promised the House that they will introduce a House business committee in 2013 to avoid these circumstances arising, and that were the committee established, these unfortunate proceedings could be avoided?

[Mr Spellar]

It is hugely tempting to follow the hon. Gentleman down that path, but it reveals a degree of misunderstanding of how the Westminster parliamentary system works. If the committee he mentions—this will be a long debate when we get to that—is in control of the parliamentary timetable, it will effectively become the Government, because it will control Parliament. The committee might deal with a particular part of the parliamentary timetable, just as the Backbench Business Committee does. However, responsibility for the entire parliamentary timetable—and there is nothing more intrinsic to the maintenance of government than supply and this expression, “Through the Budget”—is fundamentally the role of the Queen’s Government, as determined on a daily basis by the maintenance of a parliamentary majority.

[Mr Hollobone]

The right hon. Gentleman might be right in some respects, but were this business of the House committee to be established, it might well have on it a Government majority and be able to determine non-legislative time, even if it could not determine legislative time. Given that PMQs on Wednesday is non-legislative, I would have thought that the committee would be able to determine that the House sit on a Wednesday.

[Mr Spellar]

But it is a hugely important part of holding the Government to account. It clearly has a considerable impact on the Prime Minister, given his desire to avoid it. If one reads the memoirs of a number of Prime Ministers, not just of recent vintage—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Spellar]

I said 325, not 7.24.

It is absolutely right that we need a full debate on the Budget. I therefore question why the Budget needs to be on a Wednesday—I hope the Leader of the House will intervene—if we wish to fit in those four days and, quite rightly, have the Back-Bench pre-recess debate. Why not have the Budget on a Tuesday and the debate on the following days? That would work perfectly well, although I do think—mention has been made of staff who work here, and so on—that having recesses in the middle of the week rather than in full blocks can affect many people, particularly those who are trying to adjust to have holidays with family or, frankly, those without children who are trying to avoid going on holiday at the same time as those with family. Not much thought seems to have been given to how these things are organised—or, indeed, to parliamentary delegations. These partial weeks do not seem to be a particularly good idea.

[Mr Hollobone]

rose—

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I rise to support the amendment, because in my view the House should sit on a Wednesday in preference to a Friday. I am second to none in my admiration of the skills of the Leader of the House. He is a politician of legend throughout Cambridgeshire. He has had the good grace to visit Kettering general hospital in the past, and he is a politician without equal in his knowledge of this country’s health service. I am thus second to none in admiring his political skills, but I get the impression that he is feeling his way gently into his present position, and I feel that he has misjudged this element of his portfolio.

I give him 10 out of 10 for setting out the parliamentary timetable well in advance. I really think he has done his very best to inform the House and the House authorities about when the Chamber should be sitting, but there has been a miscalculation over the Budget. I do not know whose responsibility that is. I doubt that it is the responsibility of anyone in the Leader of the House’s office. I expect that the guilty suspect probably works somewhere in No. 11 and has not communicated the dates far enough in advance to the Leader of the House. We are therefore where we are tonight.

We are debating this matter at gone 7.30 on a Wednesday evening because the House has voted for the debate to continue until any hour. If any Members were keen to get away early this evening but voted for that motion, they would have only themselves to blame.

[Mr Bone]

My hon. Friend makes a fundamental point. Hundreds of Members voted for the resolution, so it is quite clear, at least on the Government Benches, that they want this debate to continue until any hour so that everyone can have a chance to speak.

[Mr Hollobone]

As always, my hon. Friend is right. In both the last Parliament and the present one, he and I have ploughed quite a lonely furrow on the issue of the House rising on a Wednesday.

[Thomas Docherty]

I do not wish to detract from what the hon. Gentleman says, but many other colleagues on the Government Benches—the hon. Members for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for Shipley (Philip Davies)—have also been parliamentary champions. Is that not correct?

[Mr Hollobone]

The hon. Gentleman mentions two parliamentary colleagues whom we all hold in extremely high esteem. He is quite right that they have been parliamentary champions in many respects. I have to say, however, that I am rather cross with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg)this evening, as he made an excellent speech but drew the wrong conclusions from his remarks.

If my constituents—and, I suspect, those of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty)—ever tune in to watch Parliament, they do so on two occasions: on a Wednesday at 12 o’clock to watch Prime Minister’s questions or to watch the Budget. The Opposition amendment basically conflates those two pivotal parliamentary events in the parliamentary year. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and I, in ploughing our lonely furrow and arguing that the House should rise on a Wednesday in the last Parliament, perhaps attempted the impossible in looking at the issue through the prism not of party politics but of Back-Bench opinion without any political colour applied to it. Although I welcome the amendment from Her Majesty’s official Opposition, I have to say that they have some cheek when it comes to the House rising on a Tuesday, as they were as guilty when they were in charge as are the present Government now. I would welcome an intervention by the official Opposition Front-Bench team to give us a commitment that if they ever return to office, they will pledge that the House will only ever rise on a Wednesday. I notice no stirrings on the Opposition Front Bench, which is hugely disappointing.

If my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough and I were, heaven forfend, ever to be in charge of these things, one of our first priorities would be—

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that once the House business committee is introduced, there may well be an opportunity for him to be in charge of these matters?

[Mr Hollobone]

Indeed. I do not want to be ruled out of order for being too hypothetical, but if there were a House business committee, I would hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) would be a member of it, if not its Chair; and if my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough and I were in government, one of our first priorities would be to set up that committee and for my hon. Friend to be ennobled as its Chair. If we were in charge of these matters, we would put in place the necessary regulations for the House to rise always on a Wednesday.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

In the event that the business of the House committee were set up, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be important to have representatives of the smaller parties on it so that it became totally inclusive?

[Mr Hollobone]

Indeed, and I would be in favour of regulations that gave a disproportionate share to the Democratic Unionist party because it talks disproportionate good sense on so many issues.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am listening attentively to what the hon. Gentleman is saying about the notion of guaranteeing that the House will always rise on a Wednesday. As he is not a Liberal Democrat, I think that he is probably true to his word, but surely there will be occasions—before Christmas or Easter, for instance—when it will not be practical for that to happen. The hon. Gentleman would probably accept that if Christmas day fell on a Friday, it might be appropriate for the House to rise on a Monday or a Tuesday.

[Mr Hollobone]

I follow the hon. Gentleman’s train of thought, but I do not think that those circumstances would arise. I think that there would always be a convenient Wednesday before the dates that he has mentioned.

[Thomas Docherty]

That is an interesting argument, but there would then be the danger of a long gap if the House rose on the Friday before Christmas, perhaps on 17 or 18 December, and did not reconvene until, say, 6 January. Surely the hon. Gentleman accepts that that would be an unsatisfactory arrangement.

[Mr Hollobone]

Possibly, but I think that the purpose of tonight’s debate is to try to avoid the long gap that has been identified by Her Majesty’s official Opposition. That brings me back to the point about the conflation of the two events, Prime Minister’s Question Time and the Budget. When my constituents tune into the parliamentary channel on those two occasions, they do so because they are interested in what Members are saying in this place. They are particularly interested in what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has to say about the Budget, and in what the Prime Minister has to say about the Budget a week later.

[Philip Davies]

Is my hon. Friend suggesting that his constituents are not interested in what is said in the House on Fridays? If he were suggesting that, my hon. Friends the Members for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and I would be extremely disappointed.

[Mr Hollobone]

I have done my best to apprise my constituents of the value of tuning into the parliamentary channel on one of the 13 sitting Fridays, and to lead by example by watching my hon. Friend from my room, even if I am not in the Chamber myself, and listening to his words of wisdom on so many issues. I am afraid that the message is not getting through to my constituents yet, but I will keep on trying.

My constituents do, however, want to watch Prime Minister’s Question Time on Wednesdays, and the problem with the motion as it stands is that they will be denied the opportunity to hear the Prime Minister being questioned on the Budget a week after it has been announced.

Let me attempt the near impossible and not view this issue through a party political prism. I think that my constituents, whichever party they vote for—and whether they vote for any party or none at all—want to hear what the Prime Minister has to say about the important issues of the day before the House rises for a long recess, and that, on any level, that is not an unreasonable proposition. I think that the Prime Minister himself would be keen to do that. What I am questioning is the advice that the Prime Minister is being given in this respect. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset observed, the Prime Minister does extremely well. Indeed, most Prime Ministers do well at Prime Minister’s Question Time. It is not a level playing field: the balance of advantage lies with the Prime Minister of the day. I think that the Prime Minister would be up for it, but I think that he is being badly advised.

I also think that the timetable proposed by the Leader of the House does a discourtesy to the House. That is to do with private Members’ Bills. Half a dozen Members have tabled important Bills for debate on 22 March, which have been listed on the Order Paper for the whole House to see for many, many weeks. Three of them have been tabled by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife. Also tabled for that day are the Gift Vouchers and Insolvency Bill, the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007 (Amendment) Bill, and—perhaps most important of all—the Charities Act 2011 (Amendment) Bill, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), which was given a Second Reading by one of the largest majorities given to any private Member's Bill in the history of the House.

[Mr Bone]

I would vote for the Government motion if the Leader of the House assured me that if the Budget debate finished early on that day, the business listed for the day could then be proceeded with and include the private Members’ Bills. Would my hon. Friend support that proposition?

[Mr Hollobone]

I certainly feel the Government should give some ground on this issue, just out of generosity to the Members I have mentioned in the course of my remarks, because those Bills would be extremely worthy legislation, and given that the parliamentary timetable is not exactly chock-a-block at present, I think there is some room for manoeuvre for the Leader of the House.

My main contention, however, is that Wednesday is, rightly or wrongly, in many respects the most important day of the parliamentary week. I think it is a great shame that following the Budget—one of the pivotal events of the parliamentary year—the House and the country are to be denied the opportunity of holding the Prime Minister to account for the contents of that Budget a week after it has been delivered. Our parliamentary democracy is eroded as a result. I will support the Opposition amendment tonight, and I hope the Leader of the House takes my remarks in the spirit in which they are offered.

[Mr Nuttall]

I take a slightly different view. Considering what has happened with past Budgets, does my hon. Friend agree that a passage of four weeks before the Prime Minister is questioned on the Budget would give Members an opportunity to digest all the various opinions about that Budget and perhaps therefore ask more incisive questions than would be possible if they asked them immediately afterwards?

[Mr Hollobone]

As always, my hon. Friend makes a very good point. But those Members who spend that month going over the Budget papers in the way he suggests will have the opportunity to ask the Prime Minister about them at the first Prime Minister’s questions when the House returns, but there will be other Members who will want rather swifter answers on behalf of their constituents, within a week of the Budget. The timetable currently proposed by the Leader of the House denies them that opportunity.