Private Members’ Bills: Money Resolutions

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady is not correct. The debate is about money resolutions, and they are most certainly financial matters. This Government will always look after the financial interests of the taxpayer.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, contrary to what we have heard from Opposition Members, this is about money? My hospital in Worcestershire is due to receive £29 million from the Government. Does the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) think that my constituents should not have their hospital so that he can have his political project?

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is exactly right to raise the fact that money can be used in various ways, and that duplicating a constituency boundary review is not good value for taxpayers’ money at this moment in time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Valerie Vaz]

I absolutely agree. It will actually save money in the long run.

Responding to me following the urgent question on Thursday 10 May, the Leader of the House said that

“it is right that we allow the Boundary Commission to report its recommendations before carefully considering how to proceed.”—[Official Report, 10 May 2018; Vol. 640, c. 894.]

However, the review is based on a flawed premise. We have had a referendum and we have had a general election, and as a result of our exit from the European Union we have lost further representation by our Members of the European Parliament. The workload of Members of Parliament has increased following local authority cuts and the cuts in advice services: for instance, my local citizens advice bureau has had to cut staff numbers. Members are now having to deal with more cases.

Responding to me during business questions last week, the Leader of the House said:

“The Boundary Commission review will cost taxpayers something in the order of £12 million, and it cannot be right that further money, to the tune of more than £5 million, be made available to a completely separate Bill when that work is under way.”—[Official Report, 17 May 2018; Vol. 641, c. 430.]

However, waiting for the review will cost more money. May I ask the Leader of the House what is the financial impact of waiting for the commission to report? I am sure she will agree that this is about democracy. What price democracy?

The Committee considering my hon. Friend’s Bill has met three times, but has not been able to consider a single clause of it. The Committee is due to meet again on Wednesday 23 May. Will the Leader of the House ensure and expedite the tabling of a money resolution that can be brought to the House? She mentioned that a money resolution for the Bill had been presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), but I had to raise the matter during business questions, and the Committee had to meet five times before the resolution was granted.

May I ask the Leader of the House again—she did not answer this during business questions—whether there will be a reduction in the number of Ministers? If not, we shall have an overpowering Executive who want to prevent scrutiny by cutting the number of MPs. It is not right for us to have such an overpowering Executive, and it is not right to reduce scrutiny of it.

Finally, let me ask a constitutional question. I do not want to upset people or make them afraid, but some constitutional theorists have suggested that there may be a personal prerogative whereby the monarch does not have to follow the Prime Minister’s advice. An example given during a lecture—perhaps the parliamentary private secretary to the Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), was also at that lecture: she might have been, in 2005—was the gerrymandering of constituencies in the interests of one party, and not in the interests of democracy.

[Rachel Maclean]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Valerie Vaz]

I have nearly finished my speech.

This is a hung Parliament, whose mandate is different from that of 2011. As we say hello to 13 new peers in the other place, we may be saying goodbye to 50 of us. As the numbers in the other place increase, the numbers in this House decrease. According to every definition of a good Parliament and a functioning democracy, that is not acceptable. More than 2 million people have been ignored by this Government. In the interests of procedural certainty, conventions, fairness and democracy, the Government should act now and grant the money resolution.