Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill
Debate between Philip Hollobone and David Nuttall(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hollobone
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his pertinent intervention and question. He demonstrates not only his attention to detail and his determination to ensure that he represents his constituents here on a Friday, but that he can get straight to the nub of the issue. He is as concerned as I am about the cost to his constituents of any aspect of Government expenditure. The answer to his question is that if there are 10,500 foreign national offenders in our prisons, the estimated cost is something like £300 million a year. The Home Office figure for the cost of imprisoning a prisoner is something like £26,000.
Mr Hollobone
I would be delighted to give way to my hon. Friend in just a moment, once I have answered the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley. I did promise to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker)—I keep thinking of Hebden Bridge, which is in his constituency—but then I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North. I think that the figure is £26,000.
Mr Hollobone
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman after I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, to whom I promised to give way some time ago.
Mr Nuttall
I just wanted to answer specifically the question that my hon. Friend posed a moment or two ago regarding the exact costs of placing a prisoner in secure accommodation. The latest figures are taken from the National Offender Management Service annual report and accounts for 2014-15, which was released on 29 October last year. They reveal that the costs per place are £36,259 a year, and the costs per prisoner are £33,291 a year.
Mr Hollobone
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that informative intervention. I congratulate him, as I always do, on the extent of his reading in his own private time outside of this place. If he is reading national offender management statistics with that level of detail, it shows that he spends a great of his own personal time researching issues that are important to his constituency.
Mr Hollobone
That is an extremely good question. The honest answer is that I do not know.
Mr Nuttall
May I suggest to my hon. Friend that one reason is that Poland might prefer this country’s taxpayers to pay the costs, rather than its own?
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
It is a pleasure, as always, to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who brings to the debate his own inimitable style and has demonstrated once again this morning his expertise on the whole issue of justice and home affairs, particularly the issue of foreign national offenders.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) for picking up the baton at short notice and moving the Bill’s Second Reading on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). He did so with great skill and demonstrated his own considerable expertise in this area. I am delighted to be one of the Bill’s supporters, because there is no doubt that it attempts to deal with a major problem that is of great concern to my own constituents.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough, in whose name the Bill stands, has demonstrated his considerable know-how in navigating the procedure for private Members’ Bills. The fact that he has managed to ensure that his Bill is at the top of a very long list of no less than 67 Bills set down for consideration today is evidence of that.
My hon. Friend should be commended for his perseverance with the Bill, because it is almost a year ago to the day—6 March 2015—when a previous version received its Second Reading. He noted at the time that he hoped that after the 2015 election, which was looming in the minds of all hon. Members a year ago, a Conservative Government would renegotiate the terms of our membership of the European Union and consequently make the Bill unnecessary, and that its proposed measures would be one of the red lines in the renegotiation.
As history has shown, my hon. Friend was right that a Conservative majority Government would be elected, but sadly he was wrong that they would insist that these matters would be a red line in the negotiations. Indeed, we now know that absolutely nothing was agreed in the negotiations to stop the free movement of people, which includes, of course, the free movement of foreign national offenders from within the European Union.
One reason my hon. Friend promoted the Bill again is the sheer scale of the problem of foreign-born individuals who commit crime in this country. I am not trying to suggest that everyone who comes here commits crime. It is all relative, and the scale of immigration into this country naturally brings with it an increase in the number of foreign national offenders.
According to figures provided by the House of Commons Library, between January and December 2014 there were approximately 5.3 million people with non-British nationality living in the UK, and a total of 8.3 million people who were born abroad. It is further estimated that, on top of that, some 25,800 asylum seekers entered the United Kingdom in 2014, and they were part of approximately 632,000 long-term international immigrants who entered during that year. On top of that are all those who are in the country illegally. For obvious reasons, it is difficult to be precise about the number of illegal immigrants, but there are many of them and, by definition, every single one of them has broken the law, because they have broken the terms of the Immigration Act 1971, as we heard last week on Second Reading of the Illegal Immigrants (Criminal Sanctions) Bill.
It is, perhaps, not surprising, given the huge number of foreign nationals living in our country, that some of them turn out to be wrong ’uns or bad apples. Each year, the Metropolitan police alone arrest, on average, 230,000 suspects, of whom 70,000 are foreign nationals. Only last month, the Daily Mail reported the staggering administrative costs involved in dealing with the arrests of foreign nationals, including the cost of interpreters.
It reported:
“Scotland Yard has arrested 11 people claiming to be from Dahomey—a West African nation which ceased to exist from 1975.”
That highlights the importance of checking, on arrest, the actual background of those arrested. The bill to the taxpayer for providing translators for suspects, witnesses and victims was £6.8 million between April 2014 and April 2015. The analysis by the Daily Mail showed that the translation bill worked out at an average of £100 per arrest of every foreign national.
Figures released following a freedom of information request showed that 227,535 people were arrested by the Metropolitan police in 2014, the latest year for which full figures are available. Of those, 159,294 were British nationals, and the remaining 68,241 were born abroad.
Mr Hollobone
I am enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech immensely. He is painting a very vivid picture of the wave of criminality that this country, and especially London, has experienced in recent years. Until recently, I served as a special constable with the British Transport police on the London Underground. I can tell him that something like eight or nine out of every 10 people arrested for pickpocketing on the underground in recent years were Romanians and Bulgarians, who had entered this country under the free movement regulations, for thieving from commuters.
Mr Nuttall
I am not surprised by my hon. Friend’s observation because I was going on to say that Romanians made up the largest group of foreign nationals arrested: 7,604 Romanian suspects were held, followed by 7,429 Polish, as well as 3,618 Lithuanians, 2,928 from India, 2,740 from Nigeria and 2,280 from Jamaica.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend is right that much of the debate this morning has focused on the foreign national offenders who are in our jails, who, by definition, are those who have committed the most serious offences. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said, even those who have committed 100 offences are more likely than not, when appearing before the courts, not to be sent to prison. When somebody is convicted of a minor offence, it is pretty difficult to sentence them to a term of imprisonment.
The latest figures from the Ministry of Justice on the prison population, up to 31 December last year, show that 978 foreign national offenders have committed crimes so serious that they are subject to extended determinate sentences. The same figures reveal that 2,399 foreign national offenders have sentences of less than four years, so those people could well be—and most likely will be—back on our streets before the next election.
The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), confirmed in a written answer on 23 March last year, in response to a question from the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), that the foreign national prison population in the UK included 1,657 people who had committed violence against the person, 1,035 who had committed a sexual offence, 1,192 who were in prison for drug offences, 527 who were in for robbery and 400 burglars.
Let me bring those thousands of offences to life with just one example. Mircea Gheorghiu is a Romanian national who served a six-year sentence for rape in Romania, where he had also been jailed twice for cutting timber without a licence. He reportedly entered the UK in 2002 following his release, after serving only two years and eight months of his sentence. He remained in the country while his wife and children stayed in Romania. In January 2007, Romania joined the EU, so he was allowed to stay in the UK. He was arrested for drink-driving and convicted in November 2007, and banned from driving for 20 months. When his criminal past was uncovered, the Home Office rightly deported him under the new “deport first, appeal later” scheme. However, following an appeal at the immigration tribunal, the press reported on 28 February that because Mr Gheorghiu was an EU citizen, incredibly he was allowed to return to the UK. Why? Because the two judges in the tribunal ruled that his crimes—he had originally been convicted of rape in Romania—were not serious enough to warrant deportation, and that EU citizens should be removed before their appeal hearings only in exceptional circumstances because of their right to free movement and the human right to family life.
Mr Hollobone
I am listening to my hon. Friend with great interest. He is bringing fresh information and new insight to the debate, and informatively extending the scope of our deliberations. Did the judges in that case give any indication of how serious a crime would have to be for deportation to be triggered?
Mr Nuttall
In truth I do not know whether they gave such examples, but I think that the ruling put future deportations at risk. Understandably, it will only serve to increase the sense of frustration that so many of our fellow citizens feel at how powerless this country now is to keep out convicted criminals.
Mr Nuttall
That provision already seems to have run into the quicksand, if I can put it like that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley pointed out regarding the UK Borders Act 2007, despite the Home Office’s latest plan—at least it is trying to do something, to be fair to it—the will of elected Members of this House has yet again been frustrated by the judiciary, who seem to think they know better than those of us who represent our constituents.
Mr Hollobone
I am not a lawyer, which I am rather proud of—[Interruption.] Someone says, “Evidently”. Perhaps, but maybe those of us who are not lawyers are more in touch with the real world than those who have been. Is it the Human Rights Act or our membership of the European Union that is preventing deportations in cases such as he mentioned, or an element of both?
Mr Nuttall
It is a bit of both, and partly because the European Union now includes the EU charter of fundamental rights, which essentially replicates the European convention on human rights—for these purposes those things are one and the same. If we are powerless to stop convicted rapists entering our country, we must ask what has become of our national sovereignty. I have no doubt that millions throughout the country will believe that the case that I have mentioned alone demonstrates that we need to change that state of affairs and why the Bill is so necessary.
Clause 1(1) requires the Secretary of State to make regulations, which I believe should deal with the process of removal. We are fortunate that the National Audit Office has investigated the costs and processes of returning foreign national offenders, and that it published a detailed report, “Managing and removing foreign national offenders”, in October 2014. Before anyone starts to complain that this situation is all the fault of the current Government, it is worth noting briefly that, according to the report, back in 2006, the Home Office found that more than 1,000 foreign national offenders had been released from prison without even being considered for deportation.
Although the NAO report acknowledged that the coalition Government put more resources into managing and removing foreign national offenders, it also made it clear that progress on reducing the number of foreign national offenders in our jails was slow. It confirmed—this deals with the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering has just raised—that the difficulties that hindered removals were caused by the application of the European convention on human rights, as well as the application of European law on the free movement of persons. There we have it: the National Audit Office has confirmed his concerns.
Mr Nuttall
If that is the case, it does seem strange—I am sure it will seem very strange to our constituents.
The NAO report acknowledged that the Government have put more resources into managing and removing foreign national offenders and made it clear that progress had been made, but it highlighted that the police had carried out an overseas criminal record check on only 30% of foreign nationals arrested. It made it clear that obtaining relevant documents such as passports at an early stage would greatly speed up the process of removal, and that fostering closer links between immigration officers and front-line police officers would speed up the process.
The Public Accounts Committee provided a commentary in its report, “Managing and removing foreign national offenders”, which was published in January 2015 following the NAO report. The Committee’s report states that
“police forces have been slow to recognise the importance, when arresting foreign nationals, of checking their immigration status and whether they have a criminal record overseas and they rarely use search powers to find evidence of identity and nationality.”
Whatever the reasons for that—it could be a lack of training or a lack of awareness—it is significant, because establishing nationality at an early stage would allow for further background checks to be carried out.
The report also states:
“Only 30% of foreign nationals arrested were checked against one key overseas database for a criminal record in 2013–14, and the great majority of police forces do not have automated links between fingerprint machines in their police stations and the Home Office’s immigration databases.”
The Committee suggested that a massive £70 million could be saved by fostering and developing such links.
The NAO noted in its report that in 2013-14, more than one third of foreign national offenders who were removed left as part of the early removal scheme. That is the scheme that returns foreign national offenders to their country of origin before they would be let out of prison if they were back here in the UK. The NAO also noted a key improvement in reducing the number of failed removals from 2,200 down to 1,400, but 1,400 still fail. That number is still far too high. I hope we will hear some detail from the Minister on why so many removals fail and what is being done to improve the situation.
Very often, we hear that problems with the delivery of Government services are due to a lack of resources, but the Public Accounts Committee noted that the number of staff working in foreign offender management had actually increased from fewer than 100 in 2006 to more than 900 in 2014—a huge percentage increase. The taxpayer can rightly expect to see an enormous improvement for that increase.
It is helpful to consider the cost to the taxpayer of dealing with foreign national offenders, because it demonstrates what an enormous drain on taxpayer resources this problem is. The NAO estimated that the average cost of managing a single foreign national offender was about £70,000 a year. The total bill for 2013-14 was an estimated £850 million, which confirms a figure that was mentioned earlier. I should add that that does not represent the total cost of a foreign national offender to British society. The figure is an estimate from the NAO, because there is an absence of definitive data. There is of course the possibility that the actual cost is much higher when one considers all the costs, from the investigation of the crime through to managing an offender in the community. Perhaps the most notable finding by the NAO, which the PAC also raised, was that managing foreign national offenders costs an estimated £100 million a year more than managing British prisoners. The Committee also noted that the Home Office did not know the reoffending rates of foreign national offenders in the community. The public will want to have confidence that such matters are now being addressed and recorded. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on that point.
Both the NAO and the PAC highlighted the delays in the removal process. The NAO carried out a review of 52 cases in which a foreign national offender had been successfully removed and discovered that 20 cases had had avoidable processing delays. They included seven instances where the case had not been worked on for an average of 76 days, and a further six cases where administrative errors had delayed the process. In order to gather information on foreign national offenders, the Home Office sends out to each one a 50-question paper form. On average, it takes 32 days just to send out the questionnaire, which does not exactly give the impression of speed or urgency. It is perhaps not surprising that foreign national offenders are not so keen on administrative matters such as paperwork. It is not a surprise that almost half of the forms are never, ever returned.
Mr Hollobone
Are these forms being sent to foreign national offenders in English, or are they in the language of the offender themselves? Or is there yet a further burden to the taxpayer in having to translate that document for the offenders to respond to them?
Mr Nuttall
That is a good point. I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister will know the answer to that question and will be able to enlighten my hon. Friend when we hear from her later in the proceedings. As my hon. Friend noted in his speech, foreign national offenders are from every corner of the globe. It would indeed be an enormous task to ensure that the form sent to each foreign national offender was in a language that that individual could understand. I rather wonder whether all the forms are sent out in English. That might go some way towards accounting for why fewer than half are returned to the Home Office.
There were 1,453 failed removals in 2013-14, and although 36% of the cases in which the Home Office tried to remove a person but could not occurred for reasons that the Home Office considered to be within its control, nearly two thirds of the remaining 930 were classified as being outside its control. If the Home Office has lost control of the process, I think it fair to ask who has that control.
Another issue that arises from the removal of foreign national offenders is the compensation that is payable to those against whom legal proceedings are taken by the Home Office, and who then take proceedings against the Home Office for unlawful detention. That, I think, is another reason why it is so important for the Bill to be passed and the law clarified. The National Audit Office reported that between 2012 and 2015, £6.2 million in compensation was awarded to 229 foreign national offenders. It really is a case of adding insult to injury. On average, about £27,000—approximately the average UK salary—had to be paid out following claims alleging breaches of the processes under the Immigration Act 1971 and the UK Borders Act 2007.
Not much has been said today about prisoner transfers. On 5 November 2014, when asked about transfer agreements, the permanent secretary to the Home Office said in evidence to the Public Accounts Committee:
“Most prison transfer agreements are with the consent of the prisoner, and that is worldwide. That has mostly been because we have tried to get Brits back to serve their sentences within the UK. The big change in the EU...is to make prison transfer compulsory—without the prisoner complying.”
The permanent secretary was referring to a fundamental change from the previously exclusively voluntary approach to international prison transfers. He went on to say:
“There are specific arrangements in place with the Irish Republic. For Poland, there is a stay in implementation while they improve their prison system.”
The Committee noted that over the past few years, the number of British nationals returned to UK prisons through the prison transfer agreements to complete their sentences had been about double the number of foreign national offenders being removed. Noting that imbalance, my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) observed during the oral evidence session:
“So we are actually not exporting criminals; we are importing criminals. One of our growth areas is importing foreign criminals. It takes a special genius to put in place a system under which we are net importing foreign criminals into our prison estate.”
There is clearly a real problem here. Surely we ought to be removing more foreign national offenders than we import. The problem is there are relatively few effective prison transfer agreements in place. Poland, which has the highest number of foreign national offenders on the prison estate, has been exempted until the end of this year.
The principle of exclusion or removal of foreign national offenders is at the heart of the Bill, and I think it would be helpful to be clear and simple about that process. I would have hoped that serious offenders would be prevented from entering the country in the first place, but sadly that is not always possible. There are many cases of criminals being allowed into the UK, where, not surprisingly, they commit further crimes. We must improve border checks, but once a foreign national is in the UK, if they commit a crime, the police must check their identity and check whether they have been engaged in any previous criminal activity. Clearly, the administrative process of removal should then be straightforward. If a foreign national is convicted, a caseworker should be attached and should determine as soon as possible whether there are likely to be any barriers to deportation. That could be an appeal based on human rights legislation, a lack of co-operation from the home country, or a lack of co-operation from the offender. If those problems were identified early, the relevant authorities could take action so that when the time for deportation came, it could proceed smoothly.
In his Policy Exchange speech on prison reform only last month, the Prime Minister spoke about action in this area. I agreed with him when he said:
“Of course, there is one group I do want out of prison much more quickly, instead of British taxpayers forking out for their bed and breakfast: and that is foreign national offenders.”
He announced plans to legislate to give the police new powers. In light of those comments, I hope we will hear from the Minister that the Government will support the Bill today.
Face Coverings (Prohibition) Bill
Debate between Philip Hollobone and David Nuttall(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Hollobone
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and may I echo my remarks to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) by saying what a privilege it is that my hon. Friend is here today to take part in this debate? He is a champion of these private Members’ Bills Fridays and he always brings a very distinctive and very personal view to our proceedings. It is surprising to me that he and I are on different sides of this argument, because we agree on so many things, not least the importance of closed-circuit television in fighting crime. My hon. Friend is perhaps the foremost advocate in this place of the benefits of closed-circuit television, but of course one of the big problems with face coverings is that if someone whose face is covered is captured on CCTV, we cannot identify them.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; he is being very generous with his time so early in his remarks. He is touching on an important area that I wish to question him on briefly. One of the reasons this Bill is seen as particularly sensitive is that the two groups he has referred to are very separate. One may be out to break the law—they may be covering their face because they intend to break the law and not be seen—while the others are law abiding and are covering their face because of their religion. It is that conflict between those two groups that causes the difficulty with the Bill.
Mr Hollobone
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. I am triply blessed today, given that he too is in his place and contributing to the debate. He is without parallel in his scrutiny of private Members’ legislation, which is to the advantage of us all. I want to make it clear from the outset that I know that there are strong views on both sides of this argument. There are strong merits and strong demerits to the Bill. I said earlier that, in many respects, I was sorry that it has come to needing legislation. The problem is that law-abiding citizens who cover their face for supposedly religious reasons are, by their actions, alienating so many of our other citizens in this country. It causes alarm and distress to many of our citizens who are not part of those religious groups to see Britain’s high streets being increasingly dominated by, especially, Islamic women who are covering their faces in full. I would be doing my constituents a disservice if I did not bring these concerns to the Floor of the House.
Mr Hollobone
I do understand that reluctance and, in many ways, it pains me greatly to propose this Bill. For me, although perhaps not for my hon. Friend, a line is crossed when we are talking about covering one’s face. For me, this is not about telling people what to wear—it is not about clothing; it is about the concealing of someone’s identity. That is where the big difference lies.
Mr Nuttall
Before we move on to the issue of identity, let us stick with the issue of communication. On a serious note, has my hon. Friend had any communication from the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, because deaf people rely on being able to see someone’s lips for the purposes of communication if they are a lip reader?
Mr Hollobone
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and I have had communications from deaf people who have raised it. They tell me how frustrated they feel whenever they are faced with a woman wearing a full-face veil, because they are simply unable to communicate, unless in a written form. That must be extremely difficult for deaf people and it is a real concern. It must be extremely difficult for veiled women who are deaf to engage with other veiled women in their communities. Some five interventions ago, the right hon. Member for Leicester East challenged me on the point about religious beliefs. I am not a Muslim; I am a member of the Church of England and I go to my local Salvation Army. I am very much from a Christian background, but I have huge respect for people of faith, whatever their faith might be, and that includes Islam. Of course, I am not an Islamic scholar, but I have researched the matter in some depth and nowhere at all, anywhere in the world, can I find any proscription that women are required by Islam to cover their face. As I understand it, the Koran, the holy book to Muslims, requires women to dress modestly, and the vast majority of Muslim women in this country adhere to that without covering their faces.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. I agree with much of what he has just said, as I agree with him about the need for this country to have its say in a referendum on whether we remain members of the European Union. I suspect we are on different sides in that argument, however, although we are on the same side in this debate.
The Bill was very well introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), with whom I almost always agree. He was supported in bringing the Bill to the House by my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Christchurch (Mr Chope), and I am sorry that they are not able to be in the Chamber today so that we can hear and debate with them their views on this matter.
The Bill deals with a matter which, while we may not like to admit it, is a concern for many people, because it is unusual in this country. Traditionally, of course, it has not been usual for many believers in the Christian religion to cover the front of their face, although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering said, it was traditional for Christians to cover their heads in going about their everyday business. In my early life I attended a Christian church at which many of the women would cover their heads; they made a special point of wearing a hat in church. Conversely, men were expected to take their hats off. I should declare an interest: I am a practising Christian and a church warden, and in that role still to this day I have sometimes very gently and discreetly had to ask gentlemen to remove their headgear when they enter church wearing a hat, just because of the sensitivities particularly of some of the older members of our congregation.
I am conscious of the fact that other Members have waited very patiently and want to speak on this matter, so I will not use up all the time and will instead try to allow sufficient time for others to speak, but I do want to make two brief points. First, the difficulty with this whole topic is that there are two groups that would be most affected by introducing a general ban on face coverings. In the first of those groups are those whose primary purpose, having committed or intending to commit a crime, is to escape detection by covering their face. I think we all agree that that is wrong, and it would be helpful if there were some way to separate that group from the rest, because we do not want to see that happening.
The second group comprises those who wish to cover their face for religious reasons. As we have heard, there is a debate about whether it is necessary for a female follower of the Islamic religion to wear a veil. I am not an Islamic scholar, and I do not know the rights and wrongs of this matter. There will be all sorts of views on whether that is right or wrong, but from my point of view, that does not really matter. My view is that if that is what they believe to be right, that should be the end of the matter.
Mr Hollobone
Throughout his speech, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) kept insinuating that I had not spoken to Muslim constituents about the Bill. On the contrary, I have had lots of conversations about it with Muslims in Kettering. Some of them have made the point that they are embarrassed, as Muslims, by Muslim women going around wearing full-face veils. Does my hon. Friend accept that there are Muslim women in Kettering who have a problem with face coverings?
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes the good point that there are different views even among the Muslim community on the merits or otherwise of people choosing to cover their face.
I take the view that, regardless of one’s religious belief, we should not ban things just because some people disapprove of them. I will not go into the statistics from the opinion polls, but they suggest that a large majority of British adults agree with the sentiment of my hon. Friend’s Bill, with 61% agreeing with the statement that the burqa should be banned in Britain, and 32% disagreeing. Those figures were taken from a YouGov poll taken last September.
Tobacco Products (Plain Packaging)
Debate between Philip Hollobone and David Nuttall(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Nuttall
It is all very well saying that, but the Minister said in a previous debate that the new packs were not going to be plain packaged at all, but were going to have lots of glamorous, glitzy holograms on them in different colours. [Interruption.] The Minister did not say “glamorous”, but she did mention different colours and holograms. The point is that I never met anyone who said that it was the packet that made them want to take up smoking.
Sittings of the House (22 March)
Debate between Philip Hollobone and David Nuttall(11 years, 8 months ago)
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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 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.
EU-UK Relationship (Reform)
Debate between Philip Hollobone and David Nuttall(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
It is, as always, a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) on securing this debate.
As chairman of the Lords and Commons “Better Off Out” group, I agree that we should repatriate powers from the European Union. The only difference is that I think that we ought to repatriate all powers. Other countries in Europe should not have the power to tell this country what to do. Given all the problems in the eurozone, it is a fruitful time to renegotiate our relationship with the European Union.
However, based on the precedents, I fear that the hope of success is not great. Nevertheless, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that in a few months or in two or three years’ time, those who wish to stay in the European Union and repatriate some powers will be successful. The British people will then be faced with what I call an in/in referendum: they will be given the choice of the status quo—staying in as we are now—or staying in with 17/20, 18/20 or 19/20 of the status quo and repatriating a few powers. I suspect that for millions of people in this country, that will simply not be good enough.
The question is what those people should do who think, as I do, that we would be better off outside the European Union. Faced with an in/in referendum, those who wish to be outside the European Union should take part in the referendum and, as a third option to come out will not be granted, simply write the word “out” on the ballot paper. Even if those votes are not counted, it will be clear how many spoiled ballots there are. We will know how many voted for the proposition, how many voted against it and how many voted to come out. That is one way for those of us who think that we would be better off outside the European Union to make our voices heard.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Without interventions, we are on track to get everybody in.
Taxation Freedom Day Bill
Debate between Philip Hollobone and David Nuttall(12 years, 12 months ago)
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Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is a privilege to move Second Reading of the Taxation Freedom Day Bill. It is a small Bill with an important message to Her Majesty’s Government from the Great British taxpayer and provides for an annual taxation freedom day to reflect the proportion of tax paid by individuals from their income. The idea is that each year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer must, by way of a statutory instrument, specify a day that will be observed as taxation freedom day. The purpose of this taxation freedom day will be to mark the day in any given calendar year on which the United Kingdom’s net national income reaches the level of the United Kingdom’s estimated level of national taxation for that calendar year.
In the Bill, total national taxation includes all forms of direct, indirect and local taxation and it will be calculated not by Her Majesty’s Government and not by me, but by the independent and trusted Office for National Statistics. Likewise, the Office for National Statistics would also be charged with calculating net national income.
Each year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will determine the day in the year when taxation freedom day will fall using the proportion of the United Kingdom’s estimated level of national taxation to the United Kingdom’s estimated net national income. Under the terms of the Bill, an order would not be able to be made unless it was laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament. Each year, before 30 November, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have to lay before Parliament the estimated date of taxation freedom day in the following year and, before 31 May, the Chancellor will have to lay before Parliament a report setting out whether the estimated date of taxation freedom day in that calendar year was correct.
The purpose of the Bill is to try to provide some transparency for the British taxpayer about the burden of taxation on them and on the national economy. It is essentially politically neutral and is not an argument for or against any particular level of national taxation. I have my own views on that, on which I hope to elaborate later, but all I seek to do is to get across, in a readily understood and straightforward way, the proportion of our economy that is taken up in taxation. The Bill is one of almost a dozen that I have put before the House in this Session. I should like to place on record my thanks to Jonathan Isaby at the TaxPayers Alliance for his contribution to the Bill’s drafting. I thank also the Adam Smith Institute for its germ of an idea about having a readily understood national taxation freedom day, as well as the Freedom Association, which has been extremely supportive.
Taxation freedom day in 2011 was 30 May—three days later than last year—which means that, on average, every British taxpayer had to hand over all their income to Her Majesty’s Government for the first 149 days of 2011. Only after 30 May did they get to keep for themselves any income they earned. Having recognition of such a calendar date would reflect and get across in a very simple and straightforward way the burden of taxation on our economy.
The date of taxation freedom day varies from year to year, and the point is to make it easy to understand how the burden of taxation changes each year. In 1964, taxation freedom day was 23 April, whereas in 2011, as I have mentioned, it fell on 30 May. So, over that period, taxation freedom day moved by 37 days. In 1964, the average British taxpayer had to work for only 114 days before they could keep their income for themselves, but in 2011 they had to work for 151 days before they could keep their income.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a very cogent speech. Is he aware that these figures have been calculated back to the turn of the 20th century? In 1900, the figure was only 22 days and in 1910 it was only 19 days.
Mr Hollobone
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that most helpful intervention. Such interventions highlight how well he serves his constituents with the depth of his knowledge and research into legislation such as this. The figures he gave put into context the horrifying advance in the burden of taxation that we all have to pay. The fundamental truth is that Her Majesty’s Government and Ministers such as the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who is on the Front Bench, do not have any income or resources of their own. Everything that the Government spend on our behalf either comes from the British taxpayer or is borrowed. The burden of that taxation demand is of concern to everyone.
There may well be Members, perhaps on the Opposition Benches, who believe that the burden of taxation should go up. That is a perfectly respectable argument. There are those who believe that the state can marshal the resources of the British people better than the individuals themselves. I do not happen to agree with that, but it is a perfectly respectable point of view. I would expect them to welcome taxation freedom day going up the calendar, so to speak, perhaps into June, July or even August. My Bill does not say that that is a bad thing. What my Bill says, in a politically neutral way, is, “Let’s let the British people know what the burden of taxation is so that they might make a judgment about whether it is acceptable or not.”
The figures that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) cited from the turn of the 20th century demonstrate how far we have come, in an adverse way, since those days. My humble remarks go back only to 1964, which happens to be the year in which I was born. In 1964 British taxpayers had to work for only 114 days until taxation freedom day, and now, in 2011, the equivalent figure is 141.
Taxation freedom day has moved around quite a lot in the past 47 years. The House might be interested to know, for example, that between 1964 and 1970, taxation freedom day moved by 40 days, from 23 April to 2 June. Those were the days of the devaluation crisis, a great deal of trade union militancy and the public finances being in some disorder. The burden of taxation went up by more than a month’s worth—40 days’ worth—over that period. Then, from 1970 to 1973, taxation freedom day fell by 21 days, from 2 June to 11 May.
Mr Hollobone
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is what Her Majesty’s Government are currently trying to do.
Mr Hollobone
Indeed. We can have better public services that are less dependent on public subscription. By making the burden of taxation transparent, through this calendar mechanism, the arguments for the more efficient use of public resources can be strengthened by the simple idea of trying to make taxation freedom day fall earlier.
The Conservative party has supported the idea of taxation freedom day in the past, but I am disappointed to see that, in the handout from the Government machine, the Government are going to oppose the Bill today.
Mr Hollobone
That is a very good point and the Economic Secretary has heard it. She will also have heard the voice of the House expressed only the other week in support of my hon. Friend’s motion. The burden of petrol taxation has got to such a level that it is probably constraining economic growth in an unacceptable way, at a time when growth from anywhere would be most grateful.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend said what the gross figure would be for a higher rate taxpayer. Of course, we now have two rates of higher tax at 40% and 50%. Does he know to which of those rates his figure applies?
Mr Hollobone
I believe that the figure I quoted is applicable to the lower of the higher rates. The figure would be even worse for those who pay the top rate. I am sure that the Tax Buster app has a facility to calculate the tax burden for those on the very highest rate.
The aim of the app is to bring greater clarity and to illustrate for taxpayers the need for more transparent taxes. The Government have been pushing for more spending transparency, which is welcome. I hope that in her remarks, the Economic Secretary will welcome this effort to make our taxation system more transparent and offer the TaxPayers Alliance the Government’s support.
Another great concern for taxpayers is that this country has two big taxes on individual incomes: income tax and national insurance contributions. There are many in this Chamber and many organisations outside who believe that those two should be combined. That would make the taxation system more readily understandable for taxpayers. To most people, national insurance is almost indistinguishable from income tax. Its function is now essentially the same—raising revenue for the Government. Despite performing essentially the same task, the two systems operate in a different manner in eight key ways, for example in the collection period and the definition of earnings. That is unnecessarily complex and adds to the expense of collecting revenue for Her Majesty’s Treasury. Most importantly, national insurance contributions obscure the public’s understanding of how much they are being taxed. Most debate at the time of the Budget or the autumn statement focuses on the level of income tax. National insurance, despite being extremely important, is often overlooked.
I would support reforming national insurance to align it with income tax, which would cut costs, reduce complexity and improve transparency. I therefore believe that the Government should abolish national insurance for both employers and employees, and combine it into one taxation system. Abolishing national insurance would make the whole thing simpler, cheaper and more transparent.
I have spoken about the simple version of taxation freedom day, but of course we can take the matter a step further. As well as having a national taxation freedom day, we could break it down into regional variations. The Adam Smith Institute has done that for the United Kingdom. It calculates that in 2011, there are huge variations. In Wales, the regional equivalent is after 35 days, and in London it is after 51 days. The taxpayer in London is having to work for 51 days with all their income going to the Treasury, but in Wales it is far less. In the east midlands, where the constituency that I have the privilege to represent is located, it is 38 days.
The institute has also calculated the number of days that it takes Britons as a whole to pay off each individual tax. For example, income tax takes up the first 39 days of the year; national insurance the next 26 days; VAT the next 29 days; corporation tax the following 12 days; fuel duties and petroleum revenue tax the next seven days; local taxes including business rates and council tax the following 13 days; capital gains and inheritance tax the next two days; duty on alcohol and tobacco the next five days; and all other taxes the following 17 days. Again, that helps to clarify the burden of taxation on the hard-pressed British taxpayer and how it is split up by each of the individual taxes that we are all obliged to pay.
I mentioned earlier the briefing that the Government information machine has circulated about my Bill. I have to say, I am very disappointed by it, and it makes a number of points that need to be tackled head-on. I will do that now, so that instead of reading out those points the Minister can respond to them. The Government’s first attack point is:
“The methodology for calculating Tax Freedom Day includes all forms of direct, indirect and local taxes. This gives an exaggerated sense of the tax burden on an individual level and does not recognise the progressive elements of the tax system.”
I do not share that concern. I do not want to exaggerate anything; all I want is a transparent system.
I would welcome comments from the Government about how they feel the burden of taxation on the average British taxpayer ought to be calculated. I am not particularly fussed about the methodology of that, as long as it is consistent year on year and can be backdated for a reasonable number of years so that we can get a sense of the progression either way. As I stressed at the beginning, my Bill is politically neutral in that sense. It does not argue that taxation is a good or bad thing; it is simply intended to make the way of getting that across to the public as transparent as possible.
The Government’s second attack point is:
“Acknowledging the need for freedom from taxation disregards the public benefits that flow from the revenue raised, through public spending. These include some of the country’s most important priorities—the healthcare of our people, the education of our young, our nation’s security, and the infrastructure that supports our economic growth.”
Of course, that is right. We need taxation and public services. I am not arguing with that. My Bill is politically neutral in that sense and does not disregard the public benefits of taxation; it simply aims to get across to the British people how much they are obliged to cough up to pay for those public services.
The third point:
“In the past decade the date for Tax Freedom has varied very little. How can those supporting the Bill justify the expense and Parliamentary time that will be taken up designating a specific date each year?...What assessment have those supporting the Bill made of the costs to the Treasury of the proposed legislation?”
The Government must have been struggling to come up with attack points when they got to that one because I cannot imagine that much expense would be involved in designating taxation freedom day.
Mr Nuttall
Furthermore, as my hon. Friend has demonstrated, over the years tax freedom day has fluctuated wildly.
Mr Hollobone
Indeed. The Office for National Statistics is a thoroughly competent organisation whose judgment we all respect, and I cannot believe that to get this exercise under way would place a massive burden on it or Her Majesty’s Treasury. The Adam Smith Institute, through its good offices, has published its version of this information. That is a small, privately funded organisation. Given all of Her Majesty’s Treasury’s resources, at taxpayers’ expense, I am sure that getting this exercise under way would be a small matter. On parliamentary time, we are talking about one statutory instrument a year, and we know that passing hundreds of statutory instruments accounts for only a small fraction of the cost of running Parliament.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. That could be dealt with in Committee; we could amend the Bill to include that date as well. That opens up a whole new area of complexity, because there is not only the difference between income, expenditure and the actual spending programme to consider but the effect of existing debt that needs to be paid off.
Let me deal with the Bill in a little more detail. Clause 1(1) requires the Chancellor of the Exchequer to specify one day each year that
“shall be observed as Taxation Freedom day.”
Unfortunately, the Bill is silent on how we as a nation are to observe this great day. I understand the reluctance of my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering to suggest having another bank holiday, but I submit that it might be appropriate to mark the day with an annual debate in the House on the ways in which the burden of taxation could be reduced in future years and hence the day brought forward.
Mr Hollobone
I am enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech hugely, and that is a most constructive suggestion. In formulating the Bill, I had in mind that at the very least the Chancellor of the Exchequer could make an oral statement to the House and we could then question him or her on the taxation freedom day proposals, but an annual debate—with a motion, one would hope—would be excellent.
Judiciary and Fundamental Rights
Debate between Philip Hollobone and David Nuttall(13 years ago)
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Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Although I appreciate that as usual with these matters the accession of Croatia is essentially a done deal, I want to raise one or two concerns about the accession process and the consequences that agreeing to Croatia joining the European Union will have on the United Kingdom.
It is anticipated that the formal accession agreement will be signed at the European Council meeting scheduled for 9 December, but it appears that EU leaders are effectively taking it on trust that Croatia will complete the necessary preparations before it is formally allowed to join on 1 July 2013. As my right hon. Friend the Minister said, however, Croatia needs to do a lot more. Paragraph 7 of the explanatory memorandum, which quotes the Commission’s own assessment, spells out that further efforts are needed from Croatia in order to improve the independence, impartiality, efficiency and professionalism of its judiciary, and that only if the commitments made by Croatia are met will that country be ready.
As the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) spelled out in his clear speech, it is obvious that whatever processes were in place when Bulgaria and Romania were allowed to become members of the EU, the checking mechanism in advance did not work. Now, years later, there are still problems with those countries. It is to be hoped that the checking mechanism between now and July 2013 will be slightly more rigorous than it was for Bulgaria and Romania.
In principle, I have nothing against any country wishing to join the EU, if that is what the country and its people wish, but I have concerns if the admission of a new member state will adversely affect the interests of the United Kingdom. So far, I have seen nothing about how much Croatia might contribute to the EU budget. Indeed, some might be forgiven for thinking that Croatia’s accession will just mean the equivalent of yet another hungry mouth to feed. The European Commission has recently proposed the expenditure of an additional €13.1 million to deal with Croatian accession, to be spent on such things as Croatian translations and, of course, opening a new office in Croatia.
The accession of Croatia will mean that there will be over 4 million more citizens within the borders of the European Union. As we know only too well, following the accession of other eastern European countries to the European Union, a citizen of a member state has the right to take up employment in any other member state. Once in employment, he or she has the right to reside in that member state and is also entitled to certain welfare provision.
Mr Hollobone
Does my hon. Friend recall the difficulty that Her Majesty’s Government are currently facing with European nationals coming to this country who are not seeking employment, but who declare themselves to be self-employed and, through that mechanism, access benefits that Her Majesty’s Government give out? With 4 million new EU nationals effectively created by this new accession, that is bound to add to the problem.
Mr Nuttall
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He raises a problem that will only be exacerbated by the accession of Croatia. I would be grateful to know what specific transitional arrangements are being put in place in respect of Croatian nationals wishing to come to the United Kingdom and, in particular, for how long such controls will be in place.
Furthermore, I am concerned that yet another treaty will be required to provide for the accession of a new entrant to the European Union, for which we, the United Kingdom, appear to be getting absolutely nothing back in return—and needless to say, without consulting the British people.
Daylight Saving Bill (Money)
Debate between Philip Hollobone and David Nuttall
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I wish to speak to the money resolution because I am concerned that we are seeing an abuse of the parliamentary process. It has been the tradition for many years in this place for a money resolution, which can be tabled only by Her Majesty’s Treasury, to be tabled within a fortnight or three weeks of a Bill passing Second Reading, particularly a private Member’s Bill. What we are talking about is private Members’ legislation, which is extremely precious to the individual Members concerned and very precious to the House as a whole.
The name of my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) luckily came up in the ballot, she duly tabled her Bill and there was a most interesting debate on Second Reading on 3 December 2010, when despite the opposition of Her Majesty’s Government the legislation was passed by 92 votes to 10.
The context is that we are sitting through an extended Session of Parliament. Instead of there being an annual Session, we have a two-year Session, so 40 private Members’ Bills should have been tabled, but only 20 have been, because the Government have not allowed extra Friday sittings on which to table extra Bills. There has been only one ballot for private Members’ Bills, in which my hon. Friend was lucky to be successful, so private Members have had a reduced opportunity to table legislation.
I contend that the Government have used the extra time in the Session to delay the passage of my hon. Friend’s Bill, because it is now almost a full year since that Second Reading debate. My hon. Friend the Minister’s answer to my earlier intervention was not good enough, because the Government should not use this delay in tabling the money resolution to sort out their attitude to any particular Bill; they should table the money resolution to go along with the will of the House as expressed on Second Reading, and then sort out their attitude to the Bill prior to Committee. Members may not appreciate that a private Member’s Bill cannot proceed to Committee unless the money resolution is passed, so the Government are using that device to delay the progress of the Bill.
Mr Nuttall
Is it not the case that, if this Session had been of normal length, the Bill would have already fallen?
Mr Hollobone
That is absolutely right, and my hon. Friend makes an extremely perceptive intervention. In fact, the Government have used a whole year of this two-year Session to delay the Bill, thereby denying the House the scrutiny it needs to improve legislation. I cannot understand why the Government are so frightened of scrutiny, because the better that Back Benchers do their job, the better the legislation, and the better the reputation of the Government of the day.
Private Members’ Bills
Debate between Philip Hollobone and David Nuttall(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hollobone
Those wise words from across the Irish sea are extremely welcome, and it would be great if more Members of this House thought that way. I know that the hon. Gentleman is an assiduous attender, who stands up and speaks up in this place on behalf of his constituents. He is not frightened of scrutinising legislation, and private Members’ Bills are all part of that parliamentary process. Each of us, no matter what party we represent, is the only person from our constituency entitled to sit in this Chamber and speak up on behalf of our constituents. If we can do that to good effect on those 13 Fridays, more power to our elbow.
Mention has been made of the late, great Eric Forth, who was an outstanding parliamentarian. One of Eric’s great attributes was that although he did try to scrutinise private Members’ Bills in great detail, he would not have been in favour of reducing the number of parliamentary Fridays. He would have said that it is everyone’s right to try to introduce legislation, but that legislation must be scrutinised effectively in this place. We heard a comment earlier about the difficulties of Bills making progress, but the point of this place is not to make progress with Bills: it is to scrutinise them and to allow their passage once they are in a fit and proper shape. I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) will demonstrate that to good effect this Friday, given the years of work he has put into honing his legislation in fine detail, and ensuring that every nook and cranny has been explored and every possible difficulty ironed out. If Parliament did not exist, we would not be able to scrutinise legislation in that way, which is why these private Members’ Fridays are so important.
Mr Nuttall
Does my hon. Friend agree that one way in which good ideas in private Members’ Bills reach the statute book, even if they are not successful in reaching it on a Friday through the normal procedure, is by being adopted by the Government and, on occasion, by being fitted into Government Bills?
Mr Hollobone
My hon. Friend speaks wise words, and I can give him an exact example of what he describes from this very week. I have sponsored the non-controversial Face Coverings (Regulation) Bill. It is one of my Bills that has not reached the Floor of the House, but on Monday the Home Secretary stood at the Dispatch Box and said that the Government were looking into the difficulty of controlling all the yobs in these riots who cover their faces. My Bill would make it an offence for someone to cover their face for the purpose of obscuring their identity. I was pleased to be able to draw that to the Home Secretary’s attention this week, and I very much hope that she will look at my Bill and see how it might be best adapted to meet the Government’s needs. The quickest way to facilitate any advantage to this country in that becoming law would be to introduce the Bill in Government time in this place.
However, in response to my hon. Friend, may I say that I have a feeling that one reason why the Government are nervous about granting too many private Members’ Fridays is because they have recently had a bad experience in this place with the Daylight Saving Bill? Lots of hon. Members were determined to see that Bill make progress and they gave up their Friday to attend in numbers to ensure that its Second Reading passed, despite Government opposition. Governments do not like getting their fingers burned, which may be one reason why they have, in effect, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough said, reduced the number of days to which this House is entitled.
I am sorry, but the House of Commons does not exist for the convenience of Her Majesty’s Government. The House of Commons exists to hold Her Majesty’s Government to account, because without Parliament the Executive would be able to run amok. On these Benches sit centuries of tradition and scrutiny of the Executive, and the private Members’ Bill process is part of that process of trying to improve the life of our nation. I am disappointed that the Government are being so mean as to allow only four extra private Members’ days, because at the very least the number should be 13. I very much hope that when the House Business Committee is up and running, we will have a proper sensible allocation of days for private Members’ Bills.
Information for Backbenchers on Statements
Debate between Philip Hollobone and David Nuttall(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Hollobone
I do not think that would be enough, which is what is behind tonight’s motion. It is not for the Prime Minister alone to say these things; it is up to us in this House to assert our authority over the Prime Minister and other Ministers of the Crown. It is up to us collectively to say, “We are the House of Commons, rightly or wrongly, and all of us were elected by our constituents to hold the Government of the day to account.” It is not up to us, on matters like this, to take diktats from the Prime Minister. It is for us to say to Ministers, “If you have an announcement affecting the nation, we want to be told first”—not only because we were elected by the people to represent them, but because we can then question Ministers about the statements they make. If we get this right, it will raise the level and quality of statements because Ministers will know, as the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) said, that they cannot just spin things out to the media, as they have to come here and face our wrath first.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the real problem at the heart of the issue is the precise interpretation of the ministerial code, which states that “the most important announcements” have to be made “in the first instance” to Parliament? It is particularly the interpretation of “the most important announcements”, as opposed to announcements that affect the whole nation, as my hon. Friend said, that is critical. If it were to say “all announcements”, for example, there would be no doubt about it, and it would effect a change in Government policy. If that were to happen, it might go a long way towards resolving this problem.
Mr Hollobone
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and I hope that he, too, makes a representation to the Procedure Committee. The difficulty that we all face is that if the Government were to make all announcements on the Floor of the House, there would not be much time left for other business—Government or otherwise. The difficulty is striking the right balance between the most important policy announcements and the others.
We saw a very good example of that today on the occasion of the urgent question about the Office for Tax Simplification. I am perfectly prepared to accept that the Exchequer Secretary had very good intentions in releasing a written ministerial statement, but as a humble Back Bencher I must express my personal view that on a day when we were discussing Treasury matters, it would have made sense for him to come to the House to make an oral statement.
The difficulty faced by my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary lay in the need to achieve the right balance between what is a really important statement and what is not. Today Mr Speaker rightly accepted an urgent question because he felt that it concerned a matter that he felt needed to be discussed on the Floor of the House. However, I think that if we can clarify the protocol, with the guidance of the Procedure Committee and input from hon. Members, the Exchequer Secretary, if faced with a similar situation in the future, will be crystal clear about what should be announced on the Floor of the House and what should be released in the form of a written ministerial statement. That is an illustration of the fact that the present system is not working properly.