Business of the House (Today)

Richard Shepherd Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

If I remember correctly, Maine’s “Ancient law” makes the observation that justice lies in the interstices of procedure. That rubric has survived through our history since it was set and there is a truth in it. Today we are confronted with a motion that is incomprehensible, and with an understanding that seems sly and that is actually a means of trying to incline the public to believe other than what is so.

At the heart of this is a misconception about what this House represents. We must be straight with ourselves if we continue to allow the Executive to control—so completely and absolutely now—the Standing Orders of this House. This can be no joy for Labour, because Labour also started a Modernisation Committee that was determined to take over the Standing Orders. My overlong time in this House of Commons has led me to understand that the growth of Executive arrogance is unsupportable. We say that we are disconnected from the public outside and the issues outside, and that is because we are meaningless when we are confronted in the House with no motion and no real ability to discuss the very issue that moves many people in this country. What is the purpose of this House if the Administration —and a Conservative Administration at that, whose members had to suffer all the years of a huge new Labour majority—have not learned something, namely that there has to be tolerance in this House and there has to be an ability to debate in this House?

This is what so angers one. This is what brings this Chamber into disrepute. We are not able to discuss the substance of what we stand for here, and that is wrong. I therefore think we should be talking out this motion until the end of time, until the Government come back with a proper motion before this House.