Proceedings during the Pandemic and Hybrid Scrutiny Proceedings

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 21st April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I very much love the ritual, tradition and history of the House, as many others do. I may not always adhere to the ritual in the way that Mr Speaker or others would like me to, but I do my best to follow the rules and regulations. I love that tradition, history and ritual, so what we have in front of us is, for me, a bit alien to the process of the House and how we have done business, in my case and that of my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), for the last approximately 10 years here.

The Leader of the House referred to being a traditionalist. I am a traditionalist as well, although I am not against change. Mr Speaker, the Leader of the House referred to you as a traditionalist. I cannot say if you are or not—you will make that decision—but I perceive that you are, as are many others in the House. The need for the ritual is important.

I want to ask the Leader of the House, as I did earlier, about the potential abortion legislation that may come here. I understand that the legislation, as proposed, would come before a Delegated Legislation Committee. How can we, as Members of the House who may not be on that Delegated Legislation Committee, participate in the Committee, whenever the potential legislation can be brought before the House?

I understand that the procedure at the moment is that we can attend the Delegated Legislation Committee and ask for permission to address that Committee, although we cannot ever be part of the voting process. I want to check, procedurally, how we can do that and whether we can continue to do that.

I underline the point—I say this with all humbleness, Mr Speaker—that I am not technically minded. I learned how to text about two years ago. [Interruption.] I am being honest, because I want to ensure that I and perhaps others in the House, who may not have the opportunity to express themselves in the way that I have today, can participate in that voting process. I have asked the Leader of the House about that. He and I share a certain belief, which is deeply heartfelt, about moral and religious issues. I want to make sure of that for those of us who are perhaps not sure how the IT works or how the system works. I have staff, but I am conscious that they are working from their own homes. A staff member can perhaps set it up and there may be some help from IT to do that as well.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is probably the most assiduous Member of the House and he attends the Chamber every day, so I wonder if he shares my disquiet about this big decision to downgrade the importance of being physically present as part of our proceedings being discussed in a pretty brief debate that has not had notice. I recognise the importance of making such changes, but does he agree that it is vital that they are temporary and do not become permanent without much more thought and much more extensive debate?

[Jim Shannon]

I do share those concerns. For me, as the right hon. Lady outlined, the process involves being in the House, participating in debates and putting forward views on behalf of my constituents from Strangford—and, indeed, on behalf of people throughout the whole United Kingdom, because we make decisions here for the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, not for Northern Ireland alone.

Scrutiny in the House is really important, because when we look forward to the future we have to have an exit strategy. Not for one second am I saying that Ministers, the Government and the Prime Minister do not have an exit strategy in mind, but it is so important that people have some idea of the vision for where we are going, and of the timescale, provided that everything goes according to plan. Let us hope we can look into how shops can open again. For instance, hardware shops can open but garden centres cannot. Some people, and I am one of them, might say that if hardware stores can operate with the self-distancing measures that are used back home—people phone up the place and make their order, drive down but stay in their car, somebody comes out with their order but then leaves, and they pick it up, put it in their car and take it away—why can garden centres not use the same process? We should have the opportunity to scrutinise issues like that.

We understand the sadness for people in relation to funerals. A couple of my constituents have passed away, and I am very conscious that at both those funerals only 10 people could attend, meaning that some family members were precluded from attending. I understand the process and I am not being critical of how it was done; I am just asking, in our process of scrutiny, whether it is not possible that the self-distancing process could have meant that more people could have attended the funerals. Norman McBride from my church died, but only 10 people could attend the funeral. That was immensely frustrating for many people who wished to express themselves, but the opportunity to do that will come again.

I want to ensure that we have the opportunity to ask questions in this House, or through the new virtual Parliament process, and that we can enable our constituents to have a voice in this Chamber, whatever the process might be, ever mindful that, as the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) said, it is only for a short time, which is why I understand the need for it. Who would ever have thought that we would be in the position we are in today? Nobody—particularly not me—would have predicted that things would be as they are.

We need to scrutinise and have opportunities to ask questions. I have already emailed and written to the Minister responsible for agriculture at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—I know that I am going to say exactly what you are thinking, Mr Speaker—about the fact that the price of beef cattle is down £195 a beast, lambs are down £40 each, and milk has dropped from 28.5p per litre down to 23.5p per litre, with the possibility of it falling to 18p. Those are crucial issues for us in this House to scrutinise. As the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) said, we cannot have the answers to these questions in three weeks’ time; we need the answers today. That is the point when it comes to scrutiny in this House and how we move forward.

We also need to have contact. I know it is already happening, but it is really important that all four regions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland work together, so that when we move forward on the questions and issues that come up regionally, we have a strategy and can move forward. We all know about Captain Tom Moore and have much enjoyed his raising some £25.5 million through social giving. He said that tomorrow will be a better day; let us hope for that.