Human Rights (Joint Committee)

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I welcome the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) to her place.

The motion seeks to approve the House of Commons members of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. As I have said, these names have been agreed by the Committee of Selection, and they would join the Members of the House of Lords who were appointed by that House on 16 July 2015. The motion is being considered tonight, under Standing Order No. 15(1)(c), having been objected to when it was first put to the House on Monday 14 September.

This is an important Committee that in the previous Parliament considered issues such as UK compliance with the UN convention on the rights of the child, human rights judgments and violence against women and girls, as well as undertaking pre and post-legislative scrutiny of many Bills. I therefore encourage all right hon. and hon. Members to support this motion. I commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We cannot understand it. We are allowed on practically every institution and Committee of the House, and we are prepared to serve assiduously on them. We want to be part of this Committee. We have something to contribute. Why are we being excluded? Why is the House happy with our exclusion?

[Dr Coffey]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

Will the hon. Lady explain?

[Dr Coffey]

I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that the second Opposition party in the last Parliament was the Democratic Unionist party, because the Liberal Democrats were part of the Government. As for the Committee, this House gets six members and the other place has six. He will be aware that when Committees get to seven or above, that is when the second Opposition party gains a seat.

[Pete Wishart]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady, but here is an obvious solution: why not change the rules? Why are we bound to having parity with the unelected, absurd House down there, which represents absolutely nobody? She represents a constituency, and I represent a constituency. We represent real people and have an interest in a Committee of this place; they represent absolutely nobody. It is an absurd and ridiculous institution that should have no parity with this House.

There are 12 places on this Committee. There are six Conservative Members and four Labour Members. Who is next? There is one Liberal Democrat and one Cross Bencher. Now, we have just had an election, and the Liberal Democrats, roundly thrashed and rejected by the vast majority of the country, were left with a rump of eight MPs. Yet the Liberal Democrats have been given a place on this Committee, ahead of the third party of the United Kingdom—the Scottish National party with a 56-seat victory in the last election. How can that possibly be right?

There is even a Cross Bencher on the Joint Committee. I do not even know what Cross Benchers do. I think they are somehow supposed to be neutral or arbitrary, and are appointed on the basis of the greatness and goodness they bring, but why is a Cross Bencher ahead of directly elected Members from the third party of this House? I ask again, how can this possibly be right?

What really gets me about this affair is that this Committee is vitally important. Mr Speaker, I know that you take a keen interest in the working of the Joint Committee. It exists to scrutinise Government Bills for compatibility with human rights, to scrutinise the Government’s response to judgments on human rights and, importantly, it looks for opportunities to enhance human rights across the United Kingdom. Surely this House wants the third party of the UK to play a part in that process. I simply cannot understand why it would not want that to happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Weir]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that it is actually worse than that? Only this week, it appears that the Government have been threatening to suspend the House of Lords because it did not want to accept what the Government wanted to do with tax credits. Now, however, the other place is more important than us when it comes to membership of this important Committee.

[Dr Coffey]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I recognise that SNP Members are having a debate, but we are supposed to be discussing Members from the House of Commons who are going to sit on this Committee. Membership of the House of Lords is a different matter and one for the other end of the corridor.

[Mr Speaker]

In establishing the background to, and context of, the present debate, it is perfectly legitimate for the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) to say something about factors that he thinks might be informing—rightly or wrongly, in his judgment—the composition of the Committee. However, there is a difference between establishing the context and a tendency to dilate. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not wish to dilate on the matter of the Lords make-up of this Committee, or to theorise about the possible injurious effect on SNP chances of being on that Committee as a consequence of not taking up seats in the House of Lords. The matter with which the hon. Gentleman should be concerned is the Commons contribution to, and Commons Members of, this Joint Committee, which I think is quite sufficient for his eloquent dilation.