Information for Backbenchers on Statements

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

I rise simply to correct the assertion I made earlier that the Press Gallery was bereft. I have since noticed the not inconsiderable frame of one of the members of the press—I believe from the Jewish Chronicle—who—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman entered the House with me in 1997, and he is aware of the normal custom that one does not refer to people outside the Chamber. I allowed a modest latitude for the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), because what he was saying was central to the thrust of the argument that he wished to develop, but to get into the business of identifying individual journalists is not good for the House, and it is probably not good for the egos of the journalists concerned either.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am grateful for your ruling, Mr Speaker. Should there be any members of the Press Gallery up there this evening, they should be commended on turning up, although as you know, the reputations of lots of members of the Press Gallery precedes them, whether they are here or not.

If you will forgive me, Mr Speaker, I got stuck in 1947, with the resignation of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. However, to move on from that, the Library has produced some valuable intelligence on the issue of ministerial statements not being made correctly. I understand that in the 27 years since 1983, there have been 44 incidents on the Floor of the House when the Speaker or a Deputy Speaker has had to make a ruling about the pre-release of information. Indeed, I fully expect the total figure to be somewhat higher. We are therefore talking about a regular occurrence, and it is clearly difficult for any Government, of whatever colour, to get things right. That is why we now have an opportunity, with this new politics, to try to ensure that we have a protocol in place that everyone can understand and which it is far more difficult to fall foul of.

Even though the Backbench Business Committee is a new innovation, the issue of ministerial statements going wrong has been discussed on the Floor of the House and by Select Committees before. In February 2001, the Public Administration Committee conducted an inquiry into the ministerial code. Its findings make for interesting reading, so perhaps I could indulge the House for a moment by reading them:

“There is one respect in which the accountability requirements of Ministers in relation to Parliament have been weakened over the lifetime of the Ministerial Code. This concerns policy announcements to Parliament. The 1949 version of the Code provided that: ‘When Parliament is in session, important announcements of Government policy should be made, in the first instance, in Parliament.’ However, in…1997…the formulation has become: ‘When Parliament is in session, Ministers will want to bear in mind the desire of Parliament that the most important announcements of Government policy should be made, in the first instance, to Parliament.’ This represents a reduction in parliamentary accountability. We recommend that when the Ministerial Code is next revised the spirit of the original wording should be restored in respect of announcements of important Government policy.”

Basically, the Government of the day, having been ticked off, accepted that recommendation. However, my contention—and that of the Backbench Business Committee—is that despite being corrected by the Public Administration Committee in 2001, the procedure is still not clear enough to the Government of the day.

I have to say that I am extremely disappointed that the new coalition Government have got off to a bad start on the release of policy information to this House—I should also say that I would have said that whichever Government were now in power. The coalition Government got off to a bad start with the Queen’s Speech, which is an extremely poor place to get off to a bad start. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) raised the matter in the House on a point of order on 25 May, when he said to you, Mr Speaker:

“You rightly used to excoriate Labour Ministers if ever we made announcements before making them to this House, so will you make sure that that lot over there do not announce things to the press—as they have done, day in, day out over the past 10 days—without first bringing them before this House?”

You, Sir, then said:

“This gives me the opportunity to say at the start of this new Parliament that I shall continue to expect, as I said two days after first being elected Speaker last June, that ‘Ministers ought to make key statements to the House before they are made elsewhere’… If they do otherwise, I—and, I am sure, the House—will expect to hear explanations and apologies as necessary.”—[Official Report, 25 May 2010; Vol. 510, c. 53.]

You have been as good as your word, Mr Speaker. The Backbench Business Committee—and, I hope, the whole House tonight—will praise you for that, because you insisted that Ministers who have not complied come to the Chamber to apologise to the House. [Interruption.] Yes, and rightly so. Why? Because we are, rightly or wrongly, elected by our constituents to be their representatives in this national Parliament; and if a Minister is deliberately or inadvertently releasing information before telling the people’s representatives, they should be called to this House to apologise. To the credit of the Ministers involved, even though they made a mistake with the pre-release of information, they have had the good grace to come here and apologise—and I now make a partisan point—unlike Ministers in the last Government, who never did so.

It is wholly appropriate for the Opposition of the day to hold Ministers to account for the release of information. That is part of the job of Opposition. However, that is also the job of all Back Benchers, whatever party we represent, and it is no use Government Members not being prepared to criticise Government Ministers because we are supposed to be on the same side. We have to think wider than that if we are to fulfil our proper roles as Back Benchers. We must have the guts to stand up and say to Ministers on our own side, if necessary, that this is not right and not the way to treat the House of Commons of the UK. We should encourage Ministers to take a professional pride in releasing information only to this House in the first instance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

You mentioned that because of all the big legislation coming through, it is important that Parliament has the right powers, and of course I agree with you, but do you agree that under the last Government there were also very big legislative measures and that Parliament was then neutered by programme motions and having only one question time a week instead of two? Do you agree—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The intervention is a little on the long side. May I very gently say to the hon. Gentleman that I did not mention anything and that I am not agreeing with anyone? I call Kate Green.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It might be helpful to the House if I remind Members that this debate has to conclude no later than 10.34 pm, so we have 85 minutes left. The debate will, very properly, be wound up by the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee. I have had indications from seven further Members that they wish to contribute; right hon. and hon. Members are quite capable of doing the arithmetic for themselves.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker; I make that about 10 minutes.

What is interesting about the current situation is that if the Procedure Committee comes up with proposals for change, it will not have to beg the Government for time to have them debated but can simply pass them to the Backbench Business Committee so that it can table a substantive resolution to change the rules of Parliament. That system, which most representative bodies have, is a key change.

The Leader of the House was entirely right not to recreate the Modernisation Committee, not least because it was the wrong process: Parliament, not the Government, should run Parliament. I was on the Modernisation Committee. I like these procedural matters, and I happen to be on both the Backbench Business Committee and the Procedure Committee, not because I am a glutton for punishment so much as because procedure is the key way of enabling us to do things.

My memory may not be entirely right, but I believe that the last time the Modernisation Committee met was some time in late 2008. The Opposition’s view was that at that point Parliament was modern, so there was no reason for the Committee to continue meeting, and it ceased some time before the general election. However, we are now in a situation in which Parliament can assert itself to take power on behalf of the electorate. That is the key change. We are the voice of the people, and it is our job to do that.

Other changes will come through. One matter that the Procedure Committee considered in the previous Parliament was what we do when the Government fail to answer a written parliamentary question. Under the previous system we could either ask it again, which did not generally work very well, or put in a freedom of information request. That was an absurd situation, and the Procedure Committee decided to establish a process whereby hon. Members could go to that Committee and say, “This question has been inadequately answered.” I hope that we will consider that matter as the second item on the agenda, because I agree with the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) that Parliament has to reassert itself.

I would go a bit further than that. We need to recognise that according to article 13 of the basic constitutional law of the UK, the Bill of Rights, Parliament is here to redress all grievances. That means that we are here to speak on behalf of our citizens wherever problems exist, whether they be in this country or around the world, in the judicial system or in the Executive. Over time we might move more towards the separation of powers, or we might simply stay as we are, but it is crucial for Parliament to assert itself as the voice of the people, and in doing so, bring Parliament closer to the people.

That requires relatively nuisance-like people such as me to do things that are perhaps not exactly what our party would like us to do—especially with mine in a coalition Government—and to raise embarrassing matters. That actually strengthens the whole process of government, because when we ask difficult questions it may mean that civil servants are empowered to say to the Government, “Well, actually, this isn’t necessarily something that you should do. Perhaps if you do it slightly differently, that will be a better way of running the country.”

I have often described the way in which we run this country as like driving a car and trying to avoid a car crash by looking in the rear view mirror at the car crash that happened two years ago. Many times when things go wrong in this country there is complete quiet. Then, after a year, a lot of people make a bit of noise but nothing happens. After a bit longer even more people make a noise and there is an inquiry, which finds that there was a real disaster some years before. Parliament needs to get more upstream in that process, so that problems are raised in Parliament as they arise and the Government answer, giving the truth about what is happening.

One thing that shocked me when I came to the House from Birmingham city council was how out of date the information to which parliamentarians had access was. Even as an opposition member of the city council I was used to knowing—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. Gentleman, but I must ask him to focus on the terms of the motion, specifically the question of information on Government statements and ministerial accountability to the House for statements made.

[John Hemming]

Thank you, Mr Speaker

This is about questions and information. The reality is that we are now moving towards improving how the House holds the Government to account. Like the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire, I should avoid going into too many details on the possibilities, because I still hope to be on the Procedure Committee—if it is ever set up. If the Opposition are interested in matters of procedure and if they cannot find Labour Members to sit on that Committee, why cannot the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who is a musician, replace another musician and former Labour Member who was defeated at the election? We need to constitute the Procedure Committee.