“A New Magna Carta?”
Debate between Philip Hollobone and Fabian Hamilton
Fabian Hamilton
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and question. Yes, of course, this is a new departure even during my brief 17 years here in the House of Commons. It is essential that this House and its elected members have the say in whether this country goes to war and I think that the public were baffled previously as they did not realise that Parliament did not have to give its approval for an act of war between Great Britain and other nations in the world. We need to codify this and to set it in stone, as it were, so that never again can a Prime Minister say on behalf of the monarch that we declare war. Elected Members of Parliament and only elected Members of Parliament should have that right.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his statement and praise him and the Committee for the quality of their work. They are bound to win first prize for the largest Select Committee report in this Parliament. Does he agree that a good starting point in reforming the constitution would be to empower this House to decide when it meets and what it discusses? If an event of importance to our nation takes place during one of the parliamentary recesses, it is not the House that decides to recall itself but the Government of the day, which might well be minded not do so. Does he agree that a good starting point would be to introduce a recall mechanism for the House so that it can call itself into session if something important happens either in this country or around the world?
Fabian Hamilton
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his pertinent question. I heard the questions that he put to the Leader of the House earlier today on that very subject and it is absolutely clear to me that the elected Members of this House should have control over their timetabling and over whether they can sit. I am baffled about why that has not happened already, although I know that we had some responses on that from the Leader of the House earlier. I would hope that if there were any codified constitution or written constitution for this country it would set the elected Chamber of our Parliament at its heart. Otherwise, our electors simply cannot understand it when they contact us and ask us to recall Parliament for a debate on whether to attack Syria, Iraq or whoever it might be, only for us to say that it is up to the Government of the day and that we have no power to make that decision. That has to change.