Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House

Robert Syms Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

No, it is not what I am saying. I am saying what I said in my own words. Let me go to the decision that I think the Government took on the motions; then the Leader of the House may comment in due course.

What the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said, in his pitch to Mr Speaker yesterday and in his debate today, was that in both debates the Government argued against the motions that were on the Order Paper. Before today’s debate I carefully read the debates to see whether that was right: I do not think it was. In the NHS debate, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health did not argue against the motion on the Order Paper. What he actually said was that it was bogus, because it did not address some of the fundamental issues. [Interruption.] This is exactly as I said, Mr Speaker. As soon as attention is drawn to the motions on the Order Paper, which the House was being asked to agree, people do not like it. That is the fundamental point here, and one I am sure my right hon. Friend considered before he made a decision about the way that Government Members should vote.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

One of the most precious things in this House is a party deciding when it will or when it will not vote. That is up to a party, or indeed up to a Government. This is the first time I can remember an Opposition complaining that they are not being defeated by the Government.

[Mr Harper]

It is interesting, because when I read the debate it was of course the Opposition spokesman, the shadow Secretary of State for Health, who asked the Government not to divide the House on the NHS motion. The Government then proceeded not to divide the House on the motion, and now all we get is a load of complaints—which seems to me remarkably strange.

--- Later in debate ---

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but he is wrong. My family has suffered a baby loss. This is a very important date, because it is the anniversary of the death of my brother’s baby, my brother being my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). I know how important the issue is, but this is not a debate about a debate. People throughout the country want to know what is going on and what we do in Parliament. They want to know that their Parliament is supreme. They want to know that we are debating and discussing.

The position that was outlined in the motions appeared in the manifesto of the Democratic Unionist party, and its members owe their electorate an explanation of why they did not vote in support. Because the DUP has a confidence and supply agreement with the Government, the Government knew that they could not command its support, and would have lost the vote. That is significant, because the confidence and supply agreement itself has to come before the House to be debated. Again, it takes the courts to tell the Government what parliamentary democracy means. Worse still, the Government then decided, during the conference recess, that the Opposition’s policies on those two subjects would be their policies. The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) will know that the Government made a statement on both policies.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned a journalist who is well known around the House, and who suggested that the Government were not intending to vote against or amend our motions, but would sit on their hands for all our Opposition debates.

[Mr Syms]

The hon. Lady has been in the House for long enough to know that many things are debated here. Ten-minute rule Bills are let through because they raise an issue, and motions are sometimes passed by a few Members during Back-Bench business debates because, again, they raise an important issue. Is it not right that the Government make their own decisions about what they will oppose and what they will not oppose? At the end of the day, that is a choice for the Front Bench. If, politically, Members think that that is a bad thing to do, let them have their Standing Order No. 24 and make the point, but ultimately what we vote for is down to the Cabinet and the Whips Office, and that is our choice.

[Valerie Vaz]

This is a debating Chamber, and this is a revising Parliament. Members can table motions, and then people can see what policy comes out. Yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), the deputy shadow Leader of the House, persuaded the Government to take on board the need for a new piece of legislation, and that is how we do things here. Ministers listen, they take on board what happens, and then we move forward. That is what I am trying to say.