Stephen Pound
Main Page: Stephen Pound (Labour - Ealing North)Department Debates - View all Stephen Pound's debates with the Cabinet Office
(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Allen
There are many ways to skin a cat, and given that we have five years and are not thinking that maybe there will be a general election next year or maybe the Government will fall—maybe, maybe—we can use all such devices. I referred earlier to the possibility, under Standing Orders, of having a special Committee. I would argue very strongly—as I was Chair of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, I would, wouldn’t I?—that there should be a serious pre-legislative stage and a post-legislative stage in our Select Committees. That is the role of Parliament, and my worry is that the Government may seek to ride roughshod over us. That is not a partisan point.
If I make any point today, I want to make the simple one—I make it to GCSE students, let alone Members of Parliament—that Government and Parliament are two separate and distinct entities. We tend to conflate them, which makes life a lot easier; when we do not know what the business of the day is and the bell rings, it is easier to be told what to do. They are two distinct institutions, and the legislature and Executive have a different view of life—not always.
If I may be so bold, one thing that new Members will learn is that there is a permanent conflict in this place, particularly if they support a party or a Government view, because they will be torn on a daily basis. If they have two brain cells, it is a difficult role to fulfil: working for their constituents and for democracy while following their party line, particularly when it is laid down by the Prime Minister or their party leader. That permanent conflict—the eternal battle, as it were, between the Government and the legislature—is one with which we need to engage.
The Government currently control Parliament and our daily agenda. Many years ago when I was a new Member, before the House had even met I sought out the doyen of Parliament at that time, a guy called Chris Price, the Member of Parliament for Lewisham West, who has sadly passed away. I asked, “Where do I go and who do I talk to to understand this place?” He said, “You go to see a guy called Murdo Maclean.” No one had heard of him.
Mr Allen
They have now. The current Murdo Maclean is a guy called Roy Stone—I am sure he is very happy at my naming him on the Floor of the House—who is the private secretary to the Chief Whip. He has a buddy on the other side called Mike Winter, who is the head of the Leader of the House’s office. They are the two most powerful people in Parliament. New Members do not know who they are or where they live, but I suggest that they go round, seek them out, knock on their door and ask their advice. I am sure that they would be absolutely delighted if 40, 50 or 100 new Members came round to understanding how Parliament and Government really work.
It is essential to make sure that we are equipped for the task of scrutiny, but we are still to set up a House business Committee. Before the last election, the Wright Committee reported to the House on a whole series of reforms, including things we now take for granted, such as that our Select Committee Chairs should be elected by secret ballot, not gifted to us by the Whips, and that members of Select Committees should be elected by party in a secret ballot, rather than appointed by the Whips. Many other reforms went through at that point. One of the key things that we missed and was sidestepped, but to which the previous Government and no doubt the Labour Opposition agreed, was a House business Committee. It would have meant that when we have an issue such as how to deal with the Human Rights Act or whether it is right that some order from 1997 determines whether or not we can elect the people who decide on everything in this House—of course that was never intended to be the case—we had a mechanism to debate those issues. If they are not debated, we may be trying to be fair, but people outside Parliament will not understand it, and some people may even exaggerate the importance of such matters for their own political gain. I am sure that that would not happen, but it could do so.
We need to have such mechanisms so that our democracy can function effectively. My worry is that now a majority Government have been returned, the instincts of various officials around the place is to ask not what we should now do to renew our democracy, but how to push their laws through the House of Commons. That contradiction could be very divisive and explode in our faces if we do not do our job properly.
Many of these things were covered in the reports of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, which might have covered them again. Briefly, the reports have talked about the crisis in the Union, our relations with Europe, devolution in Scotland and England, the role of this Parliament, improving the legislative process, the role of the second Chamber—a quiet moment in the Queen’s Speech, I noticed—and the need, as many colleagues have said, for a proper constitutional convention that goes beyond the bubble to bring people from outside Parliament alongside on how we can recreate a new democracy within the Union. Our boundaries are a matter of great concern to people in this place. Where will that issue be decided, and where will the pre-legislative scrutiny of it take place, asking whether there should be 600 or 650 Members and so on?
We have a crisis of legitimacy in our democracy. Either the House steps up and devises means by which we can debate that crisis effectively and make our institutions more legitimate—with parliamentarians deciding to support Parliament, rather than just the Government or an alternative Government—or, just as the people of Scotland faced a very different morning after the general election, we could wake up on a morning in 2020 to find our Union not only in jeopardy, but destroyed. That is something that some people would approve of, but if we do not want it, we need to act on that now.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins). He spoke with great passion and eloquence, and he is no doubt already a credit to his constituents. I am sure that we all wish him well here. He spoke with passion about his constituency and its people, and about his predecessor, who was a long-standing Member of the House. Many of us did not always agree with Sir Menzies, but we respected him for his longevity here and for his wise words on many occasions. The hon. Gentleman is following in those footsteps; he spoke with considerable passion and clarity about what matters to him. That is why we are sent here, and it does not matter if we are sent from the furthest north, south, east or west. I should like to extend my welcome to the hon. Gentleman now.
The hon. Gentleman made some accomplished remarks and will be a credit to his constituents. I think he also mentioned the House stocking certain products from his constituency. If I heard him correctly, he made a request about alcoholic beverages. That could actually be arranged. I am sure that he will not yet have found the Strangers Bar. It is quite a difficult location to find, and I know that the Scottish Members might need some assistance from others to find it. When the hon. Gentleman does so, he will see that it occasionally has guest alcohols. Perhaps he could arrange for products from his constituency to be among them.
I welcome the new Members from all the parties, but I particularly welcome the 76 new Conservative Members. We have not been wearing a rose today. I thought at first that the Scottish Members were wearing a Tudor rose as a mark of royalist endeavour, but I might have been mistaken. I am particularly honoured to have been re-elected as the Member for Northampton North. It is the town where I was born and brought up, and I have lived and worked there my whole life. My family live there, and my parents still live there. Coming back to this place with a substantially increased majority is a great honour for me.
I am not, however, going to follow in the footsteps of all my predecessors. One of them had the distinction of being the only Prime Minister of this country to be assassinated while in office, albeit in May 1812—
Michael Ellis
From what I hear, the hon. Gentleman recalls the incident quite well.
Stephen Pound
I was not actually present in the House in 1812, but Spencer Perceval was happy to live in the glorious and ancient borough of Ealing.
Mr Speaker
Order. I must gently point out that two other hon. Members are seeking to contribute to the debate, and we do not want unduly to curtail their opportunities.
Michael Ellis
No we do not, Mr Speaker, and I would not want to annoy you so far as other historical figures are concerned, but I shall just point out that one of my other predecessors was Charles Bradlaugh, who was the last Member to be imprisoned in the Clock Tower. That happened only in the 1880s.
Turning to the Gracious Speech, this majority Conservative Government now have an opportunity to help the ordinary working people in my constituency and up and down the country through measures that will continue to reduce the level of unemployment. Under the previous Labour Government, unemployment was allowed to spiral out of control at an unprecedented level. The facts speak for themselves. From whatever angle we look at this, unemployment is down. In my constituency, it is down by more than 50% on the level of five years ago, and youth unemployment is down by more than 63%.
The Gracious Speech referred to measures that will further reduce unemployment, and I look forward to seeing millions more jobs and more apprenticeships created. I also look forward to the welfare reforms, which are, of course, designed to incentivise work and have already gone some way towards doing that. We will see further reductions in the maximums, so that there will be a greater incentive for people who can and wish to work to do so. I want and am encouraged to see further funding for the national health service, as there is no better example of our one nation philosophy than the NHS. Northampton general hospital, where I was born—I will not say what year, but it was some time ago—
Michael Ellis
It was not quite that long ago, but it was a few years ago. I want to see more funding for that hospital and because, as we have heard, £8 billion a year more will be going into the NHS, I will be able to campaign for some of it to come to my local hospital.
On decent schooling for all, there are 29% more children in my constituency, and 1 million more children overall, now in schools classified by Ofsted as “good” or “outstanding” than was the case five years ago. Further improvements can be seen in that area, too.
We have heard about the in/out referendum. The reference to that has been controversial, but I do not see why, because it is clearly necessary and desirable to give people the opportunity to have a say on something that is crucial to their own futures—to our future. We have not had an opportunity to have a vote on Europe for decades. One would have to be over 65 to have had a vote on this subject, and this majority Conservative Government are now going to be able to push through a referendum on it. Whether one is in favour of being in Europe or outside it, the case for having a referendum on this subject is unarguable and irrepressible—this referendum has to be given.
The Gracious Speech is optimistic, looking forward to a one nation Conservatism and to prosperity in our country, and it will have my support.