Simon Hoare
Main Page: Simon Hoare (Conservative - North Dorset) Foreign Affairs Committee
Simon Hoare Excerpts
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin). Probably seared on to all our memories—I would be surprised if hon. and right hon. Members have not seen this—is the moving interview that the hon. Gentleman gave to the television news in which he talked about being able to look his father in the eye. One can understand entirely the passion with which he has spoken, and I am grateful to him for it.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), as Chairman of the Committee of Selection, said very helpfully that it is up to the House to decide on the merits of the motion. He moved the motion as, effectively, the servant of that Committee in a way that has come to typify the approach that he adopts in these matters, and the House should be grateful for that.
I very much echo the closing point made by the hon. Member for Dudley North about the role of Select Committees. We all get ourselves frightfully hot under the collar when people are badgering us in the Tea Room saying, “Will you support us on this?”, “We’re going for that,” and so on. But when the Select Committees get up and running, the epithets of party political allegiance seem to disappear. I have served on only two Select Committees, the Procedure Committee and the Welsh Affairs Committee, but I never really felt that I went into meetings as a Conservative member of the Committee. I went in as a Member with an interest in the subject. Each Committee is almost a mini House of Lords, if you will—a receptacle of expertise where people motivate themselves to sit on the Committee because they have an interest in, or experience of, that particular area. It is of course the job of Select Committees to hold the Executive to account, and sometimes the Executive get a bit of a clobbering. It is always worthwhile remembering that it was a Conservative Government who brought in Select Committees as we know them, through the Thatcher/St John-Stevas reforms.
Nobody could doubt the record of the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes): he was Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee between 2005 and 2010 and a member of the Committee from 1992 to 1997, and of course he also sits on the Committee now. I have only been in this place since 2015.
Simon Hoare
My right hon. Friend should try looking at it from where I am standing; it seems like 40 years, rather than four.
I hope that the hon. Member for Ilford South will take it in the spirit in which it is intended when I say that I watched the TV news and the proceedings in this place long before coming into the House, and when the hon. Gentleman spoke on foreign affairs, I did not say to myself, “Oh, there goes the Labour Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.” I said to myself, “Here is somebody who speaks with authority, interest, passion and a breadth of experience that the House is well advised to listen to and take heed of.”
I agree with the assessment of the hon. Member for Dudley North. When I read the Order Paper initially—of course, this is the Labour party’s second stab at this—I thought to myself that this was one of the most mealy-mouthed, vindictive and small-minded motions.
Mark Pritchard
More widely, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) has brought to bear his wonderful knowledge and wisdom on foreign affairs at the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and other international bodies such as the Council of Europe. The Committee would be missing out on all that knowledge should he be removed today.
Simon Hoare
I agree entirely. One is tempted to say that if the hon. Member for Ilford South did not exist, we would have to invent him. I am not quite sure what the formula for the invention would be, but one would have to invent him none the less.
I agree with the hon. Member for Dudley North; at the kernel of this decision is the discomfort that both hon. Gentlemen subject to this motion have created within the Labour party regarding the Leader of the Opposition’s stance on the antisemitism question, and their refusal to be silenced on it. That is true not just of these two hon. Gentlemen, but of many colleagues on the Opposition Benches.
Any student of history could tell us that the vindictive left—I put the Leader of the Opposition very much in that camp—will chase people out, even if the office that they hold is to bring the biscuits to the constituency meeting on a bi-monthly basis. They want to have their nasty little fingers—their spiteful little fingers—on every single lever. I feel very sorry for the shadow Leader of the House, because she is nothing at all to do with that. She is rather the Labour version of my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire, sent to do a job merely by dint of position rather than by instinct or by nature. She is none of the things that I am talking about.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
Since in what feels like the dying days of this Parliament we live in a political free-for-all, with Ministers not voting on three-line Whips and colleagues not voting in the Division Lobby for the motions that they move, is it really such a big deal if we allow these two Opposition Members to continue on their Select Committee? After all, all the existing rules of politics have now been broken, so let us just break a few more.
Simon Hoare
I am not entirely sure that I understand the point that my hon. Friend is making. If he is encouraging me to endorse the proposition that there should be an early dissolution of this Parliament, then he will find me in the No Lobby, I am afraid. If he is saying that the hon. Gentlemen who are the subject of this motion should remain in post, then I agree with him, but if not, then I disagree with him wholeheartedly.
Simon Hoare
I have to say that there are times when I have cursed the man who wished that we all lived in interesting times. I think that some rather calm, boring times would suit the House very well indeed.
As I say, this is a very vindictive motion, and it speaks to the heart of today’s Labour party. Never mind the quantum of expertise; never mind the demonstrable levels of interest; never mind the heights of respect that an individual is met with across the House and within the media—if they do not pass the intellectual purity test, or rather the anti-intellectual purity test; if they do not pass the ideological test; if they do not know in the original Russian all the words of the eighth verse of “I Love the Member for Islington North” and can sing it backwards in the bath, they fail and they are out. This motion is effectively a Muscovite approach to the gulags. It is trying to send the hon. Members for Dudley North and for Ilford South to some Siberian wasteland of ex-Select Committee members. It is nothing to do with the good that they have done, nothing to do with—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. This is not a debate about the leader of the Labour party, as tempting as that may be for Members in all parts of the House. The reality is that it is about the replacement of members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. We need to keep that in mind, and we need to be more temperate given the way that the Chamber seems to be getting quite heated and excited. I am sorry that I have stopped you when you are going on at your finest rate, but I am sure you want to recognise that there are lots of other speakers who may wish to add to the debate.
Simon Hoare
I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, and of course I take your ruling.
The lesson that we can draw is that if this is how senior and respected Members of Parliament who just happen to sit on Benches opposite to the Government Benches are treated by their former comrades, then God help the rest of us. We will be the first up against the wall. We will not just be off the Select Committees—we will be absolutely cast into outer darkness.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
I think that my hon. Friend is missing an important point that has to be addressed. As much respect as I have for the two hon. Members concerned, and I do, the simple fact is that we will be in a position where nominations for the official Opposition on the Foreign Affairs Committee go down from half of the Committee to two members of the Committee. That does not reflect the make-up of this House as Select Committees are supposed to. One does have to bear that in mind.
Simon Hoare
I take what my right hon. Friend says with great seriousness. He is a former member of the Cabinet and, more importantly, a former Government Chief Whip. I concur with him up to a point. If this motion sought to tilt the balance of a Select Committee’s membership in favour of the Government and against the Opposition, I would be with him entirely, but it does not do that. This motion maintains the balance between, for want of a better phrase, Executive Members and Opposition Members, and that is entirely as it should be. However, if I am correct in my assessment—I am perfectly prepared to accept that I am not—in practical, political terms, the badges and colours of separate parties are left at the door of a Select Committee meeting and picked up again when Members leave. I am not sure that this motion does anything other than pursue an agenda of vindictiveness.
Ian Austin
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because I hope it will allow me to reassure the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) that my views on foreign policy have not changed at all. The values that inform my work on the Committee have not altered in the slightest since I was selected by the Labour party to be a member of it. The arguments I put forward and the way that I scrutinise Ministers have not changed at all. I am absolutely clear that I stand up for the mainstream, decent values of the Labour party that I have stood up for all my life. That is the work I bring to the Committee, and I hope that that reassures the right hon. Gentleman.
Simon Hoare
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for using me as a conduit to send that message to my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales. He amplifies perfectly my definition of what a Select Committee is about.
In conclusion, the Leader of the Opposition may be motivated by instincts of vindictiveness and—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We have gone past that. This debate is not about the Leader of the Opposition; it is about the replacement of members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. We have had a good run round the track. We do not need to finish with another quote about vengefulness. Has the hon. Gentleman finished?
Simon Hoare
No—I just have one final sentence to add. This motion has come from somewhere. It did not just spring on to the Order Paper by itself.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I will help the hon. Gentleman. I think Mr Wiggin is responsible for it appearing on the Order Paper.
Simon Hoare
Indeed. I asked the wrong question—forgive me.
I happen to be a broad church, one nation, moderate Conservative. I happen to believe—[Interruption.] My former right hon. Friend, the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), is doing some sort of peculiar dance of the seven veils to entice me over. I have no idea what she is doing, but I am not coming.
I am not motivated by vindictiveness. I believe that we should respect those who have an interest in issues and who can speak with authority, knowledge and enthusiasm. If this motion is pushed to a vote, I shall vote against it.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance, following the comments you have made so far. We are debating the motion on the Order Paper about the selection of Committee members, but I am interested in the context of how we got there. I seek your guidance on what weight we should put on the context of where we are today, as well as what it is in the motion.
Joan Ryan
The hon. Gentleman’s intervention echoes where I started: there is no formula setting out the exact required number. It is not entirely without precedent, but it is extremely unusual for this to happen.
I will try to move on. More widely, this attempt highlights some of the difficulties with how the main parties have a stranglehold on how Parliament works—from the way debates are scheduled to the party political carve-up on Select Committees. The dominance of the House of Commons by the Whips and the usual channels does our democracy a disservice. Minority voices are squeezed out and those who dissent from the view of the Front Benches can be summarily dismissed. If we are to reach across outdated tribal lines and agree on workable solutions to the challenges that we face as a nation, we must look again at how we organise Parliament. We must do that if we are to change politics, and we must change politics.
Removing newly independent MPs from Select Committees undermines and runs counter to the spirit of reforms made in recent years to reduce the influence of political parties over Select Committees. Those changes are widely considered to have strengthened the Committee system. For instance, the Wright reforms, implemented after the 2010 election, removed from party Whips the power to appoint Select Committee members, and introduced their election by their parliamentary peers.
Let me quote some of what former and current Members have said about these matters. The background to the first quotation is a rebellion against removing Select Committee Chairs Gwyneth Dunwoody, the former MP for Crewe and Nantwich, and Donald Anderson, then the MP for Swansea East and now, I believe, a Member of the other place. The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), now Leader of the Opposition, said that appointments to Select Committees should be taken out of the hands of Whips. He said:
“I thank the Leader of the House for giving way. Before he completes his contribution, will he say what thought he has given to the Liaison Committee report ‘Shifting the Balance’, which is about the future appointment of Select Committees and appointments to vacancies that might occur in this Parliament? Does he accept its recommendation that those should be taken out of the power of the Whips Offices of all parties?”—[Official Report, 16 June 2001; Vol. 372, c. 45.]
That was very clear.
Angela—now Baroness—Browning, then the MP for Tiverton and Honiton, put the Tory Front Bench view that the power of the Whips to appoint was
“past its sell-by date.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2001; Vol. 372, c. 40.]
It is hard to disagree with that.
Robin Cook, the former MP for Livingston and a very respected and eminent Member of the House, and the Labour Government allowed free votes on Select Committee matters, because they were matters for the House. Will Labour do the same now, and if not, why not? I do not think that any free vote will take place today.
During the same debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) said:
“There is a message to my right hon. Friend. The Government might get away tonight with sacking two hon. Members who should be members of Select Committees, and they might think little of it, but in the last Parliament, and in this Parliament, sadly, they continue to present an image of what they are like which, I am sure, is totally inaccurate. The image suggests that they believe that one can ride roughshod, and grab and take anything. The impression of a belief that we rule, no matter what people say, is being marked down on our card outside. When we are in difficult times, we will find, like the shambles of the Conservative party, that it is too late to reform. The electorate will have marked our card indelibly, and when the moment comes, retribution will be visited upon us.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2001; Vol. 372, c. 61.]
Those are words to which the current Leader of the Opposition should perhaps pay a bit of attention.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
The right hon. Lady has mentioned the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who, to the best of my knowledge, resigned the Labour Whip. Is she aware of any moves by his previous party to remove him from the chairmanship of the Work and Pensions Committee? That question plays into the argument that she and I, and others, have been making that this is a very partial and personal attack.