Shaun Bailey
Main Page: Shaun Bailey (Conservative - West Bromwich West)Department Debates - View all Shaun Bailey's debates with the Cabinet Office
(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Angela Rayner
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Woe betide anyone who tells Madam Deputy Speaker what is or is not appropriate for debate in this Chamber.
By his actions the Prime Minister has run roughshod over the integrity of the process, and put his own interests before those of Britain. The suggestion that questions of suitability are for the Prime Minister alone will not cut it. When it is a clear as day that he so flagrantly disregarded advice and intervened in this process, I suggest that it is he who has undermined that process time and again.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way and apologise for interrupting her. Is it the Labour party’s position that the House of Lords Appointments Commission should have a veto? Given that it is part of her shadow portfolio, I am keen to understand. She is talking about the Prime Minister’s role in this, but does she believe that the House of Lords Appointments Commission should have that veto?
Angela Rayner
The hon. Gentleman makes a point, but the point I am making is that security advice was given, and the commission made a recommendation. If the Prime Minister overrides that advice, surely we should have a reason and transparency about why he went against the advice of the security services and the commission. That is very important and a robust way of dealing with things.
Michael Ellis
No, I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says. In fact, the noble Lord who is the subject of this debate is not a Conservative party donor and never has been, so the hon. Gentleman is quite wrong on all those fronts. The motion before the House today is what I have said it is.
Shaun Bailey
Further to the point of the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), I wonder whether my right hon. Friend and learned Friend could give me his thoughts on this tweet that has just come through, which contains this from the Leader of the Opposition:
“Congratulations on your elevation to the House of Lords. All best wishes, Keir”?
Is what is good for the goose good for the gander? What does the Minister think about that?
Michael Ellis
It has been mentioned that Lord Lebedev has been tweeting this afternoon, and I understand that he has tweeted in the past few minutes that the Leader of the Opposition congratulated him on his appointment as a peer. That must be rather embarrassing for the Labour party.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I did say at the beginning that we must have good temper in this debate. Shouting at the Minister or anyone else does not help.
Shaun Bailey
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In a bit of chuntering from the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), she referred to this as the most xenophobic Conservative party. Can I just say to the hon. Lady that I am certainly not a xenophobe and I take real exception to that? I invite her to withdraw those comments. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Let me make this absolutely clear: nobody in this Chamber is calling anybody xenophobic. If anybody has used phrases like that, stop it now. I am not having it repeated. I am taking it that these things have not been said, because it would be better if they have not. Now, let us keep this at the right level. There is no need for superlative insults to go from one side to the other.
Michael Ellis
It is quite normal practice to ignore Opposition motions; they are given the careful attention they deserve. That is common practice.
The Government regret the fact that the official Opposition have sought to use the procedures of the House to call for the release of information which, if released, would have lasting consequences and undermine the established system of appointments to the peerage. That system has served successive Governments and it is vital to preserving the commission’s ability to undertake its role.
Shaun Bailey
In her speech, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) articulated quite an interesting point. I tried to prise an answer out of her in my intervention, when I asked about the idea of the commission perhaps having a veto. Whether or not we disagree with that idea, does my right hon. and learned Friend not find it interesting that the Labour party will not state its definitive position on that? What is his opinion of that? Perhaps it is because Labour wants to use the existing system at some future point to benefit itself.
Michael Ellis
I have the feeling it will be a very long time before the Labour party is in a position to do that from the Government Benches.
The broader point is that the privacy rights of individuals need to be protected. The information shared to facilitate the vetting process is and must be handled carefully. It would be unwelcome for this House to set a precedent that such information is released, because, as I have said, to do so could deter individuals from putting themselves forward for such positions. I urge the House to reflect on whether the motion before us accords with the principle of restraint that Parliament has characteristically applied to the use of its powers. The passing of the motion would risk compromising the ability of an independent body to perform its role and, constitutionally, would impede the role of the Prime Minister in advising the sovereign on appointments. The process is necessarily confidential and the Government think it is unwise for the House to call for such information.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
This is an interesting one, as I came in with a different speech from the one I am about to give. What can I say? I must touch on the point made by the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) about this not being party political. I do not know what debate he has been sitting in for the past hour and a half, but I would certainly disagree with him on that statement. Let us consider this road to Damascus that the Labour party seems to have been on in respect of Russia. When we had the Salisbury attack, Labour’s previous leader was calling for Russia to be allowed to take back samples to test. This is absolutely crazy; it is like to Saul to Paul. The disbelief with which I have sat here today is incredible.
The issue of awarding peerages had dogged this place for a long time—we all remember Lord Levy, although the Labour party does not want to remember the investigations that went on then—but it is as problem. As I said in my intervention, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) gave an articulate speech and touched on a really important point, which is about the broader process of peerages. I wish a more definitive answer had been given for how we solve this. That is the core of the debate. I appreciate that we are considering a specific motion on the release of information, but if we consider the principles behind the debate, it is very bizarre that the Labour party does not appear to offer up solutions to fix the problem for the longer term. Clearly, there is a longer-term issue and concerns about the advice given to Prime Ministers and from Prime Ministers in the appointment of peers. Would it not make sense to open up that debate?
My understanding of the role of an Opposition is that they are meant to put forward credible alternatives, not just sit here and moan. My concern is that I could not quite get a credible alternative from the Opposition in two times of asking—[Interruption.] I can hear the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) chuntering from a sedentary position, as usual, on that point.
When the Mayor of London was partying with Lord Lebedev in 2017, or when Labour Front Benchers were partying with him in 2011 and 2012, there was silence. What confuses me about this whole situation is the fact that it is one rule for them, as always, but another rule for everyone else. But that is the Labour party, Madam Deputy Speaker—
Shaun Bailey
No, I do not think so. The hon. Member has articulated her position from a sedentary position for a long time.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) said that the core of the debate was a process issue. We do not want to undermine the process of the commission when there are GDPR and legal consequences of the motion passing. People put themselves before the process on the basis that it is confidential and they can give the full transparent disclosure that they are required to give. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Paymaster General has articulated, there is a real risk—
Sarah Owen
I thank the hon. Member for giving way on this point. Transparency is key to today’s motion. If he is all for transparency, why is his party not supporting this motion to be transparent and honest with the British public? The Minister talked about protecting processes, but this is a question about whether the process protects the British people.
Shaun Bailey
I hear the hon. Member’s point about transparency and I get that—there is a broader conversation to be had about that—but as my right hon. and learned Friend the Paymaster General stated, we cannot do that at the risk of undermining the processes that are there. What I will say to the hon. Member—perhaps she and I will agree on this—is let us change the process. How about that? There is stunned silence at a Conservative MP suggesting changing the process, but that is the point I am trying to make.
There is a fundamental flaw in today’s motion. Okay, the documentation is released, but what then? Labour seems to be clamouring for something that it skirts around in the motion but does not go forward to suggest change. It strikes me as absurd.
Munira Wilson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He says that there are no ideas forthcoming from the Opposition on how to change the process. Let me give him a bold and radical idea that my party has been championing for decades, which is that we should have a fully elected upper Chamber, not an appointed one. We would therefore not have to have this appointment process at all, and we would not have to have this discussion at all.
Shaun Bailey
Just to clarify, I never said that the Liberal Democrats did not have an idea, just the Labour party. I am fully aware of the hon. Member’s party’s position.
Let me respond to the undertones of the debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland pointed out, our response to Ukraine has not been hindered by this situation at all—with the 22,000 troops that have been trained, 10,000 missiles, the fact that we had the President of Ukraine appear in this Chamber and that he has thanked this Government for their intervention in Ukraine. The Ukrainian people say that this country stepped forward and they see us as their biggest ally in their fight for freedom—the undertone of the motion and the debate is disgraceful.
The motion is fundamentally flawed. I have no issue with backing a motion when it works, but this one does not even meet the procedure it tries to use. I come back to the point that we have been told that this is not party political, but I have been sitting in the debate for an hour now and I do not know how it could not be perceived as party political. Clearly, there are broader conversations to be had and I look forward to those ideas, but the motion is flawed and does not work. It is procedurally just not right and it seeks to undermine the existing processes, putting at risk the disclosure and transparency that we are trying to put across and the confidence people have to engage with the system. The motion is completely flawed, as I say, and it cannot be supported today.