Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and David Heath

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

4. What plans he has for future pre-legislative scrutiny of Government legislation; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

The Government recognise the value that pre-legislative scrutiny can add and we are committed to seeing more measures published in draft. So far this Session, we have published draft measures on Lords reform, financial services, defamation, detention of terrorist suspects, individual electoral registration and electoral administration, and a groceries code adjudicator. The Government expect to publish further measures in draft this Session, including on parliamentary privilege.

[Simon Hughes]

I am seriously grateful to my hon. Friend and to the business managers for arranging more pre-legislative scrutiny, which is very important. Can he assure us that, as the plans are laid for the next parliamentary year, starting next May, all Departments understand the benefit of, and the priority for, pre-legislative scrutiny and the disbenefit of introducing Government changes to Government Bills after they have been published?

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. That is exactly the point that we repeatedly make to Departments: it is in everyone’s interests including theirs that we have proper scrutiny, because better legislation has an easier passage through the House. Increasingly, we have dealt with measures rather than whole Bills, because when a measure is ready for publication it makes sense for the House to have an opportunity to scrutinise and improve it prior to the publication of a Bill.

Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation Bid for BSkyB

Debate between Simon Hughes and David Heath

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I absolutely agree with that intervention.

I agree with the Leader of the Opposition and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that this is a good day for Parliament. We should avoid being self-congratulatory—we have hardly been a model of good practice over the years—but today, and over recent days, we have been able to demonstrate that we can express the views of the public.

It is also a good day because News International’s bid for BSkyB has been withdrawn, as it should have been withdrawn. There was increasing revulsion at the revelations of what were called offences against common decency. I think people would have found it very difficult to understand why the Murdoch empire was carrying on trying to expand its boundaries when there were such clear deficiencies within.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Is it also the responsibility of the inquiry to look at the warnings that have been given over 17 years about the accretion of powers by the Murdoch empire, the failure to act on those warnings during those years, and the failure to act on the very clear recommendations to which the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) referred, which suggested in 2006 that 31 newspapers and more than 300 journalists had been guilty of illegality. Nothing was done about that in the following five years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and David Heath

Thursday 28th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I am not sure that we necessarily need to go into that. I did see the picture and thought it looked rather nice; there was almost a smile. On the serious issue of training for former Ministers, I am sure that support could be made available if it were requested, and it might be welcomed, because when people leave office they often find that they forget some things.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

3. What plans he has for pre-legislative scrutiny of legislation proposed by the Government; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

The Government have made clear our intention to improve the quality of legislation. We have already published the draft Defamation Bill and two draft Detention of Terrorist Subjects (Temporary Extensions) Bills. We have also informed the Liaison Committee of our intention to invite pre-legislative scrutiny on the Financial Services Bill, the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill, the House of Lords Bill, the Parliamentary Privilege Bill, and the Political Reform Bill.

[Simon Hughes]

I welcome that reply, but can I establish that the Government intend all Government legislation to be published in draft as well as, later, in substantive form for the remainder of the current Parliament, so that pre-legislative scrutiny can take place all the time? That is clearly the best practice.

[Mr Heath]

We are committed to publishing Bills in draft whenever possible, but the aspiration to publish more of next Session’s potential Bills in draft must be balanced against the need to devote sufficient resources to getting this Session’s Bills right. We hope to increase the proportion of Bills published in draft during the current Parliament, and by the end of this Session we expect to have published more Bills in draft than the average number under the last Administration.

Registration of Members’ Financial Interests

Debate between Simon Hughes and David Heath

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

It is because there is a danger of the situation looking completely ridiculous that the right hon. Member for Rother Valley and his Committee have come up with the proposed changes. There clearly is a gradation. If the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) were, in response to his speaking at an event for The Spectator, given several cases of Chateau d’quem, it might well be considered that that would have an effect on his judgment, whether he consumed them or not—but a half bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale might not be considered to have the same effect.

There is a need for common sense. That is precisely why the right hon. Gentleman has come forward with the proposal for a sensible de minimis requirement worth about the £65 mark. Most people can judge whether what they have received is likely to be in that region. Judging from my experience, I am very rarely given a token that comes to anything like that value. I think that if I were given something of more than that value, it would suggest that I was involved in paid employment of some kind—doing it for some remuneration—and that it should be declared. One must use a level of common sense.

I do not want this debate to become merely an insight into the life of a constituency MP. The purpose of the register is to provide information about any material benefit that a Member receives and which might reasonably be thought by others to influence his or her conduct in the House. The trivial nature of these registrations and the effort and expense involved in registering them does nothing, I would suggest, to contribute to the purpose of the register. I welcome the Committee’s proposal to introduce a sensible de minimis threshold of 0.1% of a Member’s salary, which currently works out at about £65. That is a sensible compromise between ensuring clarity and accountability while not over-encumbering the register with things that are frankly of little or no concern to any reasonable member of the public.

Turning to the rules on all-party groups, this motion implements recommendations made by the Committee in July 2009. I will not repeat the details of the rule changes, which the right hon. Member for Rother Valley has already outlined to the House. The Government welcome these proposed changes. The House will be aware of the valuable work that is done by all-party groups on a vast range of issues—for example, the armed forces, the BBC, beer and cider, clean water, underground space and shipbuilding. There can scarcely be a country in the world, nor—as the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) told a debate in Westminster Hall last week—a condition of the human body that is not covered by an all-party group. As the House will be aware, some groups are campaigning bodies, some are concerned with building relationships with other countries, and some are essentially social groups. The examples that I have here suggest that the parliamentary choir and the rugby club might fall into the latter group, although I have my doubts as to whether they do not also, to an extent, have a campaigning purpose.

I would not wish for one moment to frustrate the work of these groups or to place unnecessary obstacles in their way. However, it is important for the House to have robust registration requirements in place in order to protect its reputation, the reputations of hon. Members, and those of the groups themselves.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Although the recommendations are entirely worthy and should be supported, the one issue that remains—the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) may be able to reflect on it when he winds up—is that groups often appear to be overlapping or duplicating, and we are always spawning more groups than we can manage properly to attend or service. Might it be possible, informally if not formally, for the registrar to ensure, when somebody seeks to register a group, that the activity is not already covered somewhere else, so that we do not end up duplicating activities?

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that comment. He is absolutely right to say that there is a degree of overlap and proliferation among all-party groups. It would certainly be helpful if the registrar were able to give guidance on where there is any likely overlap. I would not be happy for the registrar to be in a position to veto the formation of a new all-party group that might have a different view or complexion as regards a particular matter, but knowing that somebody already deals with a specific subject might be helpful at an early stage in a group’s formation in order to prevent duplication.

Use of the Chamber (United Kingdom Youth Parliament)

Debate between Simon Hughes and David Heath

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

May I help my hon. Friend, and colleagues on both sides of the House who were positive about the experiment last time, by saying that the feedback from the young people who participated, particularly some brilliant young women, and brilliant black young women, was that it had transformed their lives and that they had left this place reinvigorated to argue for British democracy in a way that I honestly do not think any of us envisaged? So I hope that there will be no backwoods objection to that fantastic innovation made only a few months ago.

[Mr Heath]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments, because they are well founded and speak for the experience that many of us have had in speaking to young people who were involved that day. Let us remember that the debate took place at a time when Parliament’s reputation was severely damaged, and when young people were increasingly disaffected with politics and society. I do not think that any hon. Member would argue that either of those problems has gone away, but I believe that we are making progress. In 2005 the turnout for 18 to 24-year-olds was estimated at 37%. Five years later, turnout is believed to have risen to about 44%. It is only by continuing and increasing young people’s engagement with politics that we can continue to see those numbers grow.

For those who either watched it or were present, last year’s debate showed us young people from across the country discussing the issues that they felt were most important—youth crime, cheaper transport, free university education, job opportunities for young people, and lowering the voting age to 16. Without trespassing on the territory of the Backbench Business Committee and the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), may I say that if those suggestions were put to her Committee, they would not be out of order as matters of vital importance to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and David Heath

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

3. What proposals he plans to put to the House for the pattern of sittings of the House for the rest of 2010 and 2011.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

The House has already agreed to a sitting in September this year. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I would welcome Members’ views on how the pattern of sittings should be organised.

[Simon Hughes]

May I make an early bid for a pattern of fixed and family-friendly sittings that allows colleagues to be away some time for school holidays in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as in England, and that gives us an annual regular cycle, with the wash-up at the end of the Session in September before the conferences, and a fixed date for the start of the parliamentary year every October?

[Mr Heath]

I recognise the issue of Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish school holidays. Different local education authorities have different term dates, so it would be impossible to align the sittings of the House completely with the school terms, but I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion. There is a case for a more fundamental review of the annual sitting patterns of the House.