Early-day Motions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I am delighted to have secured this Adjournment debate. Indeed, Adjournment debates are a useful opportunity for us Back Benchers to raise issues that might otherwise not be discussed. The quality of speeches and debates that we have heard on a wide range of fascinating topics in all the many Adjournment debates since the election has really showed that this is an excellent tradition that should be maintained. However, this evening I am here to talk about another parliamentary tradition that is of considerably less worth—early-day motions.

Nearly 3,000 early-day motions have so far been tabled in this Parliament. It is estimated that they cost the taxpayer around £1 million every year. Given that the spending review has looked carefully at every aspect of our public expenditure, it is only right that we take time to reflect on the cost-effectiveness and value of early-day motions. We should ask ourselves whether it is value for money to spend so much taxpayers’ money on a mechanism that has no legislative effect and rarely has any influence whatever. We should consider whether a mechanism that does not ensure a parliamentary debate on a subject, no matter how many Members sign a motion, is an effective mechanism for Back Benchers to raise important issues.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

An answer to my hon. Friend’s suggestion might be for all early-day motions to be published only on the internet, rather than on the Order Paper, which would save a fortune. Would it not be better to call early-day motions “The Book of MP Petitions”, because that is what they are in essence? That does not negate the fact that they are useful instruments for campaigning.

[Graham Evans]

I shall mention saving costs on printing by publishing online later in my speech, but my hon. Friend makes a good suggestion on how we should reform early-day motions and what we should call them, which should be considered along with other things.

We should think about the future role of such a mechanism now that the Backbench Business Committee has been successfully established. The truth is that early-day motions have been devalued by the sheer volume that have been tabled—nearly 3,000 were tabled during the last year. Early-day motions have been devalued by the utter ridiculousness of many of them. There are motions congratulating football teams on promotion; motions congratulating two celebrities on their engagement; motions arguing about the origins of Robin Hood; motions suggesting a common hash tag to be used by MPs on Twitter; motions praising Ann Widdecombe’s dancing ability; and even a motion expressing support for an asteroid wiping out the entire human race.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

It was for precisely that reason and connected reasons that the Procedure Committee in the previous Parliament decided against recommending the abolition of EDMs or their substantive reform. However—there are several “howevers”—a major area of discontent for many years, as reflected in the Procedure Committee’s report in the last Parliament, concerned the lack of connection between EDMs, whose ostensible purpose was to set down a motion for debate in the House on an unspecified day, and the provision of time on the Floor of the House. The House has taken a major step to respond to this problem with the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee, as I mentioned at the outset.

[Robert Halfon]

To be fair, the Backbench Business Committee is slightly different, because any MP can ask for a debate regardless of whether they have tabled an EDM. As I have suggested to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), is not the answer—I say this as someone who supports EDMs—to change their name to “MPs Books of Petitions” and to publish them online? That way, no one would be misled over whether they might be debated.

[Mr Heath]

I will return to that point in a moment. Yes, the Backbench Business Committee considers any matter brought forward by Back-Bench Members, but it has shown its willingness to enable EDMs to be debated. It demonstrated that by providing time for a debate, on 10 March last year, on an EDM concerning the work of UN Women.

Drawing on a Procedure Committee recommendation in 2007 that was endorsed by the House on 25 October 2007, the Committee also enabled an EDM to be tagged as “relevant” to the debate on parliamentary reform, which took place in Westminster Hall just over a year ago, on 3 February 2011. The Committee can also draw on EDMs to provide evidence of the breadth of support among Members for a subject of debate, as it did in the case of the Fish Fight campaign. Were they to be named something else, their effectiveness at introducing subjects, with the support of Members, for the Committee to consider would not be reduced. It is a fact that EDMs have that function.

Although the Committee has fundamentally changed how business in the House is determined—and changed it for the better, in my view—some myths about EDMs linger on, although the hon. Member for Weaver Vale exploded some of them this evening. We are concerned about the propensity of pressure groups effectively to mislead our constituents into thinking that EDMs are something that they are not—an avenue to a procedure in the House—and to suggest that there is a magical number of signatories on an EDM that will cause it to be debated, which of course there is not.

That notion has persisted over the years, despite the absence of evidence to support it. It might be expedient for some pressure groups and lobbyists to perpetuate that myth and to raise false expectations among our constituents. We have all received e-mails stating that such-and-such an EDM is of critical importance and that we must sign them—I, as a Minister, cannot sign them any more, so I have a ready excuse, but I know that other Members sometimes feel pressurised by that sort of campaign.

The new House, selected in 2010, seems to have many more Members sceptical about the value of adding their names to EDMs. The average number of new signatories per week fell from 3,704 in the last financial year of the previous Parliament, to 1,965 in the first financial year of this Parliament. More Members have decided to adopt a policy of not signing early-day motions—I think we heard an example earlier. Indeed, I understand that Members can record that view with the Table Office. Above all, the Backbench Business Committee has demonstrated through its work that the link between early-day motions and debates is not a crude numbers game. For those reasons, I hope that all Members agree that the myth of a magical number of signatories should be confined to the dustbin, where it belongs.

The hon. Member for Weaver Vale identified a further problem—others have amplified it—in the triviality of some early-day motions. He referred to what he saw as some examples of early-day motions that devalued the currency. I certainly do not want to comment on any individual cases, but I agree with him that it seems highly questionable whether some early-day motions are appropriate, and that Members should pause for thought about the reputational and cost implications of their actions.