House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Friday 28th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dan Byles]

Amendments 19 and 21 would prevent a peer who resigns or is disqualified through non-attendance from being elected to the House of Commons during the course of the next two Parliaments, thereby making provision for a cooling-off period. I think we all agree that we would not want the House of Lords to become a training ground for a seat in the House of Commons and thereafter provide an opportunity to ping-pong between the Houses. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said, my Bill does not allow departing peers to return to the House of Lords, so the ponging is gone, and perhaps we are now just discussing the pinging.

I am conscious of my hon. Friend’s concerns, but the likelihood of many of them becoming reality are quite slim. On the first group of amendments, he spoke with great eloquence about how desperate many people are to get into the House of Lords. In my experience and, I think, that of most people in the House, people are very keen to go in that direction but there is not necessarily quite such a large queue waiting to come in this direction. When I have discussed this with colleagues, they have looked at me and said, “Why on earth would somebody want to go from the Lords to the Commons? Most of our colleagues seem to be trying to go the other way.”

On the potential power given to party leaderships, I am not convinced that the party leadership—in our party, anyway—has quite as much control over the candidate selection process as my hon. Friend seems to give them credit for. Whenever the party leadership tries to impose a favoured candidate on a safe seat, the fact that they are known to be the Conservative central office-favoured candidate can at times be the kiss of death with regard to the local association, which usually likes to exert its independence when it come to selecting candidates.

My hon. Friend’s argument needs to be weighed strongly against the very serious issue of barring a British citizen from seeking election to the House of Commons. I take his point when he says that someone will have made this decision when they chose to go into the House of Lords, but it is very large step to say to them, “You, as a British citizen, are one of a small group of people who, through dint of your previous job, are not permitted to seek election to the House of Commons.” We have traditionally prevented people from seeking election to the House of Commons only for very narrow reasons, and I am wary of the amendment for that reason. I am not aware of any widespread desire among parliamentarians to ping-pong backwards and forwards—or ping, at least—and I very much doubt that the party leaderships of all three parties would seek to use that as a method of grooming candidates in future.

Amendment 21 says that any peer who resigned or was disqualified would retain their peerage. That principle is already inherent in the Bill, which does not provide for peerages to be lost, and the amendment is therefore unnecessary. I urge the House not to support the amendments.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I oppose the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), although I recognise the sentiments he expresses about undue campaigning and not allowing political advantage to be conferred on people who try to get selected to this place by virtue of their being a parliamentarian already.

I disagree with the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) on the grounds that we already know of many Members of the European Parliament who have sought to come to this place having been very proactive in parts of their constituencies. I am thinking of a particular gentleman who is no longer a Member of this House but was very assiduous in parts of his region where he ultimately got selected as the candidate and was then elected to this House. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset is right to highlight the issue, but I am concerned that he may have given the idea to our political parties, rather than dissuaded them. I do not think it is necessary to put it into legislation. If there is ever a case of the procedure being abused, that would be the appropriate point at which to revisit the issue, in another Parliament.

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) has raised a serious issue and I have given it a lot of thought. It has been pointed out to me by experts on this matter outside the House that previous proposals for reform of the other place have included some sort of cooling-off period and that it should, therefore, be considered as part of the Bill.

When the hon. Gentleman moved his earlier amendments, he discussed the risk of this becoming a standard part of career progression, which is a fair point. However, we also have to balance that risk with the arguments made by other hon. Members during this debate. The decisive argument that leads me not to support the amendments is that made just now by the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles), namely that I cannot defend the principle of barring a UK citizen from standing for election simply on the basis of their previous occupation.

I accept that there is a risk, albeit a relatively slim one, of the system being abused. On the other hand, there could be some advantage to people who have experience of the other place standing for this place. I think it is fair to say that, whatever our different views about the composition of the other place and the method of appointment and lack of election to it, it is often better than we are at the scrutiny of Bills. If a small number of people with experience of scrutiny and revision in the other place came to this place, that might not be such a bad thing. On balance—this is a finely balanced argument—I come down against the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for North East Somerset and hope that he will withdraw it.

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[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I rise to commend the Bill to the House and to our noble Friends in the other place.

The Bill makes a sensible reform. I was pleased to be invited by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) to help prepare and bring in the Bill, and to serve on the Public Bill Committee.

When a previous version of the Bill was discussed, it did not get past Second Reading, even though it had a significant majority at that point. A number of issues have been raised through amendments today and in Committee. I thank, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who is one of the great champions of constitutional propriety, but who also recognises the need for appropriate reform.

I sincerely hope that the other House passes the Bill without undue delay.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call Jacob Rees-Mogg, to speak from the body of the Chamber.

Deregulation Bill

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

In many instances there is a good case for not layering further domestic obligations on top of international or EU obligations. My right hon. Friend has a pretty long and distinguished record of involvement in this area, so let me give him an example from the Bill. Clause 59 provides for “ambulatory references” in international maritime regulation. We took the approach that the law of the sea is basically formed by international agreements, and that there is every reason for our regulation not to add to that, nor even to qualify or interpret it, but rather simply to refer to it so that every shipping company and captain of a vessel knows that it is the international agreements that apply to them. That has the advantage that we can be sure that our regulation is aligned with international regulation, which tends to induce shipping to come to this country, and it also simplifies the statute book. That is the kind of shift that we are trying to achieve in many domains.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend seems to be making an excellent case for ending the gold-plating of regulation, although I am a little distressed that the Wreck Removal Convention Act 2011, which I promoted as a private Member’s Bill, will be redundant if this Bill deals with maritime matters. Will he go further and say whether there will be opportunities for Members on both sides of the House to suggest additional measures to be repealed and matters to be deregulated under the Bill, including Acts that received Royal Assent but never came into force, such as the Easter Act 1928?

[Mr Letwin]

I certainly do not want to venture on to the particular terrain where my hon. Friend tempts me, but I shall say that in the whole process of looking at 6,000 regulations and a welter of statutory guidance, one of the things we have done is precisely to draw ideas and information from wide sources throughout the country. This has not been a top-down process involving a small group of bureaucrats. I think I am right in saying that about 30,000 responses have been received following our various online efforts to crowd-source ideas, and in every single case—we have done this subject by subject—we have asked panels of real, live business people, “What really matters to you?”

What we are bringing forward as part of the red tape challenge process, of which the Bill is one small fraction, is not a set of changes that have been dreamed up by some bureaucrat or even some elected Minister, but an approach that is based on the advice of those most affected. I think that is the right way of going about it and, incidentally, it is why, across the 3,000 or so regulations that are being got rid of or improved, we have managed to achieve a little more than £800 million a year of savings for British business. I do not think that that is by any means the limit of what we can achieve, but it is already a significant achievement.

Commonwealth Meeting and the Philippines

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is important to recognise that there will be many people from the Philippines here in the UK desperately worried about their relatives back home. We should be with them at this time and praising their efforts to raise money and resources for the disaster recovery appeal.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he will continue to stand up for British values abroad and not play opportunist politics while important human rights issues are being discussed? Many of the people affected by those issues are currently living through a nightmare.

[The Prime Minister]

That is important on two counts. First, this is the Commonwealth, a multilateral organisation, and we should be there making our arguments, because if we do not, we will lose important battles over the issues we care about. Secondly, it provided an opportunity to talk about human rights specifically in Sri Lanka and to raise their profile in a way that would not have been possible sitting at home.

House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Friday 18th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes a good point that links in with my earlier point about Cross Benchers, who often feel that they only want to take part in debates on issues on which they have specialist knowledge. It may be that in one Session their area of expertise is not brought before the House, but that in the next Session it is and their expertise is desperately needed.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

While I do not wish to disagree with my hon. Friends, I find it extraordinary that people could be appointed to the House of Lords and contribute, in more than 10 years, to just one debate on one day. They could give evidence to Select Committees, if that is all they are worth.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful for that intervention. I think the vast majority of peers, as the figures demonstrate, take an active part in the proceedings of the other place. As with any large body, there will always be one or two Members who fall outside the general norm. The old adage says that difficult cases make bad law. We should not form our laws around one or two cases; we should look at the majority.

There are a lot of other things we could do to deal with non-attendance. Frankly, if peers are not attending, they are not causing any problems—they are not taking up any space and not making use of the facilities. I understand that there are one or two Members who, apparently, use the facilities but do not attend. Quite how that works needs to be considered, but I am sure there are other ways to do it. For example, it would be easy, even if the clause became law, for Members who wanted to retain their membership of the other place to take advantage of their membership without playing a full and active part. They could turn up on the first day of the Session, take part in a Division, thus ticking that box, continue to come and go as they please and not take part in anything else. Human nature being what it is, there will always be one or two who do that if such a provision is introduced. It would perhaps become known as “the Byles attendance”. They would do their Byles attendance day, get their mark and think, “Phew, that’s dealt with clause 2.”

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[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). He spoke at length on certain other aspects that he wished were in the Bill but, like him, I agree that keeping it modest means that it has a reasonable chance of making progress in this House and the other place. I welcome the Bill and am pleased to put my name to it as one of the co-sponsors, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) for inviting me to do so.

When I was a candidate at the general election, one gentleman in Kelsale wanted to speak at length on constitutional reform, and that was the sole reason on which he would place his vote. As we all know, when we are canvassing it is difficult to get the opportunity to spend more than two minutes with an elector without going back to see them another time. May I say to that gentleman in Kelsale that this bit of my speech is for him? I hope he is listening.

This useful Bill takes on a number of recommendations made in the report published in 2011 by Lord Hunt of Wirral and a cross-party group of peers. As has been said, the Bill is modest, but it has an important aim of protecting and enhancing the reputation of Parliament. In short, it deals with people who do not show up and people who are crooks. Clause 1, in particular, gives a proper mechanism for those who no longer wish to serve as Members of the House of Lords to step down.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend has just said that the Bill deals with people who do not turn up, but it would not, would it, unless they voluntarily chose to retire? They need only turn up occasionally to be excluded from the Bill’s provisions.

[Dr Coffey]

I will come to that point later, if my hon. Friend will allow me.

Repeated experiences, recently and stretching well back into the past century, show that small reform has more chance of being passed, and of being effective. I believe there is general consensus in this place and the other place that some reform is required, and I am pleased that a number of proposals that we are discussing were supported yesterday by the report of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), and indeed our newly elected Deputy Speaker, are members.

There are 785 active noble Lords in the other place—considerably more than 10 years ago. It is not the right time to go into the ideal size of membership of the other place; that is a topic for another Bill and another day. But going to the nub of this Bill, clause 1 suggests that there is scope for a mechanism for effectively leaving the other place. As has been said, for the past two years there has been an informal voluntary retirement scheme, which involves peers being given permanent leave of absence, but not many people have taken that up. It was suggested that the lack of incentive to retire is stopping people.

I believe that providing a leaving payment or use of facilities for life would seem rather contrary to many people in the country. The European Parliament offers such benefits for former MEPs, but I suspect that that would not wash here. Judging by the reaction in the Chamber, the incentive suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and, I believe, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), that they should receive a hereditary peerage, although one up in the hierarchy, as it were, would lead to excessive head-shaking—and not up and down.

There is a lot of merit in the suggestion of a leaving ceremony. We already see such ceremonies in other forms of government, although perhaps not in this place, where people are recognised for the service they have given to their constituents as councillors, and there is something to commend that for people from the other place who wish permanently to finish their service there.

In short, clause 1 provides the mechanism for noble Lords to leave Parliament once and for all. I understand that one peer, from Suffolk—the county I represent—Lord Phillips of Sudbury, decided to leave in 2006 and came back in 2009. I am sure he has been a very helpful Member of the other place, although not always voting with our Government.

Clause 2 provides that noble Lords not attending the other place during a Session lasting over six months, and not having leave of absence for the Session, would cease to be a Member. I believe it deals with people who do not show up—one thing that brings the other place into disrepute. As a parallel example, a non-executive director of UK plc who failed to show up to any meetings would be likely to be turfed out at the next annual general meeting. I would expect them to be turfed out if they showed up but did not ask a single question or utter a statement. That is important for the good repute of the other place.

Non-attendance is also contrary to the obligations of a Member of the other place as set out in the terms of the writ of summons. In exchange for the honour of a peerage bestowed by the Crown, noble Members have certain duties to carry out. They agree that they will be personally present in Parliament to “treat” and “give counsel” to the sovereign. Looking beyond that perhaps archaic language, I believe that the settlement of the writ remains valid, and that when noble Lords take up their writ, they should be expected to honour it. When candidates for Parliament sign up to be elected, it is expected that we will have obligations: we will vote. The Government and other Members are seeking mechanisms to recall Members of Parliament in certain circumstances. I believe it is important that anyone who becomes a Member of the House of Lords should expect to attend and contribute either their expertise or the crown of silver wisdom that one gets after a few advanced years.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend is familiar with our noble Friend Lord Heseltine. It was 11 years before he made his maiden speech in the other place. Are we criticising him? Certainly I would not wish to do so.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend may not wish to. I am a bit surprised that he does not wish to criticise him; I expect he did when he was in this House. I do think it was a disgrace that Lord Heseltine decided not to grace the Lords with his presence for so long. I am strongly opposed to the concept of Buggins’s turns—that just because a person has filled a particular post, they should expect to get a peerage. That is wrong.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, because I think she is being unfair to some peers. There was a period, prior to the creation of working peerages, when people were raised to the peerage purely as an honour, and when that honour was given, there was no expectation that they would be day-to-day politicians. In more recent years that has changed and peerages have been almost entirely working peerages, but to change it for those who got it as an honour, and expect them to be day-to-day working politicians, would be unreasonable.

[Dr Coffey]

I understand what my hon. Friend says, and I am not suggesting that I expect everyone who has the privilege of being a Member of the Lords to be there every day, but they should be there to help by using their general expertise, which is often what they were appointed for. I disagree with the concept that just because someone served in a particular post, they should automatically become a Member of the Lords. That tradition has recently been broken, because the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has always become a peer until recently. That is welcome, because we should not assume that one aspect of noble service automatically leads to another. That has also been the case with Cabinet Ministers, not all of whom have been raised to the peerage.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My hon. Friend is making a profoundly utilitarian point, with which I disagree. I think it was rather beautiful that there was a convention that former Prime Ministers used to get earldoms. Why not? I think it is rather lovely that we may have in our legislature Earl Lloyd-George or another great name from the past. What is wrong with that? What harm does it do?

[Dr Coffey]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I think we are straying a little. We are debating not how people get into the House of Lords but how they might leave it. Perhaps we could return to that.

[Dr Coffey]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—you are right. People have to get there before the Bill can even apply, but I will stray no further in response to interventions.

According to the figures available from the House of Lords Journal Office, there are 14 noble Lords who have not attended a single debate, Division or Committee during this Session and are not on the ineligible list of Lords who have a leave of absence. It is difficult to work out the numbers for previous Sessions, but I understand that the figures are between 10 and 20. Perhaps some of those noble Lords would attend more frequently if the Bill were passed, but the numbers are low enough for that not to be much of a problem.

We should make it clear that the Bill is not a step on the road to a professional second Chamber. The threshold for attendance is set deliberately low, so that we do not undermine the important strength of the other place, which is the experience and expertise of noble Lords from many walks of life. Clause 2 would end the situation whereby somebody can remain a Member of the other place and be able to vote on the most serious matters of state without setting foot in the Chamber for months, years or even decades. I understand that the Clerk of the Parliaments now writes to noble Lords who attend infrequently inviting them to take a leave of absence, so they are able to retire informally. That has led to a few more taking that route proactively, and I am sure I read today that by failing to reply to the Clerk of the Parliaments, four peers are now automatically being given a leave of absence.

Two categories of peer are not covered in the Bill, and we might need a bit of clarification—that is for my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire to decide. One is noble Lords who are disqualified from attending the other place because they are members of the judiciary. They includes judges who were appointed Lords of Appeal in Ordinary under the old system prior to the establishment of the Supreme Court. They are currently disqualified from sitting, but only while working as judges. Indeed, the noble Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers has come back.

The other category of peers that is not covered—I am surprised that the other place chose this system—is those who are temporarily suspended because they have chosen to serve in another Parliament with the back-up plan of returning to the mother of Parliaments when elected democracy no longer suits them, or more likely, when the electors think they no longer suit them. If we pass the Bill, it might stimulate a practice of people resigning for good when they choose to leave the other place to serve the electorate directly.

I welcome clause 3, on the expulsion of noble Lords convicted of a serious offence. There is no doubt that it causes consternation for the membership of peers to go unchallenged despite their being sent to prison. No Member of this place or the other place should be above the law, and the view is reasonably held that we as legislators should be held to an even higher standard. The clause would make that happen.

It certainly makes sense to align the rules with those in the Commons, so that those given a sentence of a year or more should be forced to leave the Lords. In this Parliament, a Member of this House voluntary resigned before being convicted of a crime, although they were given a sentence of less than a year. Some noble Lords have been given similar sentences, and clause 1 would provide them with the opportunity to step down rather than perhaps simply not attending again. That is a common-sense, even overdue, measure that will bring the Lords into line with the long-established practices of this House and improve the reputation of Parliament as a whole.

To sum up, the Bill provides several reforming measures that are important, and indeed perhaps even necessary, because of the failures of past attempts at reform. It is important that we do what we can to enhance the reputation of Parliament. Allowing peers to resign or retire, if they wish to do so, with dignity is a common-sense move. The provisions on serious offences are also a way of enhancing the reputation and perception of Parliament. The measures relating to people who do not turn up to share the wisdom for which they were first appointed also take a sensible approach. I hope that there is consensus in the House, and that we make progress with the Bill today.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I send my greetings and felicitations to that splendid gentleman and I hope that he continues for another eight years, so that he may reach his century. It proves my point: across society people are working to older ages, but legislation in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s has tended to impose tighter retirement ages, except in the House of Lords. I would not like the Bill to be used as a back-door way of introducing a retirement age. I accept that my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire is sensible of that point, and that the Bill provides for retirement or resignation.

I dislike resignation, because if people sign up to a duty, they should not just walk away from it. That is lightweight and improper, and I find it hard to believe that any peer of the realm who has taken on that grave responsibility and high honour should then think that it is right to swan off and leave the House of Lords. They have taken their honour from their sovereign.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I am interested to hear that it is not right just to swan off, but given that the writ suggests that people should be present in Parliament to give advice to the sovereign, does my hon. Friend agree that those people should turn up every now and again?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am all in favour of people turning up, but I made the point that there are valid reasons for not turning up as well as spurious ones. Of course there will be idle peers. It is even conceivable—although not in this current Parliament—that there have been idle Members of the House of Commons. You rightly look deeply shocked at that thought, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it must have happened on occasions. That does not mean that we should go around expelling Members of either House without knowing the full reasons for their actions, and it should be done under the auspices of the House. This House, through its Committees, has the ability to expel Members if it feels that is the suitable course of action. I cannot recall any example of a Member of this House being expelled for idleness. Some have been expelled for criminality, for treason or for libel, but I cannot think of one who has ever been expelled for idleness in the hundreds of years of the existence of the House. Penalties and fines have been introduced for non-attendance, but not expulsion, and it would be excessive to legislate for the House of Lords to expel for non-attendance when we are not willing to take it on ourselves.

Peers should of course obey their writ of summons and the Lords could introduce Standing Orders to cover that, but resignation would be improper. Having taken on a lifetime promise, people should not abrogate it willy-nilly. Retirement would be sad, because the Lords is the last representation in society of the elderly, and they are an increasingly important part of our society and deserve to be represented in the political nation. One of the great things about the Lords is that those of us who are little younger can wander over there and see some of the infirmities of age that are becoming such common issues across the nation. It helps bring those to the centre of the political debate and informs legislation on disability. The older people in the House of Lords have a deeper understanding of such issues than perhaps we do. That is valuable and I would strongly oppose any move to compulsory retirement. I would be cautious about clause 1 because it would open the way to that, and indeed that is what some of the promoters of earlier Bills probably wanted to see. Some people want a compulsory retirement age for peers.

Clause 3 is eminently sensible. It is a lacuna in our system that someone can serve a prison sentence and still be a Member of the House of Lords. They cannot invoke their privilege to attend the House of Lords when they are serving their prison sentences, but the day they are out they can come in.

One little point worth making is that I have checked two of, I believe, three peers in this situation, Lord Archer and Lord Black, neither of whom have participated in the House of Lords at any point since their convictions. There is, therefore, already a self-denying ordinance, which is attractive because our constitution works as much by convention as it does by statute law. We should not undermine the importance of that.

I have no objection to and indeed would be in favour of a more formalised rule. Having said that, the nub of the problem with a peer going to prison is as much to do with the title as with the ability to be in Parliament. I suggest that most people are not aware of the reasons why a knighthood can be removed and a peerage cannot be removed when somebody goes to prison. Equally, I would not like to make it easy to remove a peerage. It needs to be a difficult process because of a peer’s position as a legislator and the desire not to allow malign Governments, which do occur from time to time, to abuse a power that has been introduced for a very good reason. I would therefore like to see a different approach based on the Titles Deprivation Act 1917.

The 1917 Act—it is fascinating that we were three years into the war before we decided to do anything about this—set out the circumstances under which somebody could be reported to a Committee of the Privy Council for their peerage and title to be removed, which were that they had to be residing in an enemy country or fighting for the enemy in the current war. That had the advantage of essentially being a judicial process. I would argue that the deprivation of titles ought to be more a judicial than a directly internal matter. It is taking away not just something from a proceeding in Parliament; it is taking away an honour that it is used outside Parliament, is relevant outside Parliament and, in the case of an hereditary peerage, cascades down through the generations. This would allow, and I think the 1917 Act sets out a very good formula for doing it, the two members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council required to be on the Committee to consider whether somebody’s offence was serious enough that they should be deprived of their title, and therefore the rights and honours that go with it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My view is that if we did nothing about the increasing trend of big money in British politics, which seeks to influence the outcome of political contests through groups that are not political parties, those very same groups would campaign after the next general election, saying that we should do something about that trend. At the general election, non-party political funds doubled to £3 million. We have seen what happens when that gets out of control. Just look across the Atlantic at the United States: super-PACs—political action committees; the increasing polarisation of politics; and people outside the democratic political process, non-political parties, trying to influence the outcome of elections. We will maintain the rules, as they have existed since 2000, on whether groups are regulated as third party campaign groups. All we are saying is that non-party political parties that want to act like a political party should be asked to fill in the same paperwork as a political party.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is nothing in the Bill that stops campaigns on particular policies? Furthermore, we will not end up with third party groups spending more than political candidates are able to spend on their own election.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Under the current rules, a well-funded third party campaign group seeking to influence the democratic outcome in a constituency or constituencies could spend more money than a political party. That, surely, cannot be right. The Labour party, which is run by a third party campaign group, the trade unions, does not think it is a problem if political parties are influenced by third party campaign groups that might have political designs. Nothing in the Bill would stop Make Poverty History spending millions on its campaign. Nothing would stop the Green Alliance grading us all on our green promises—nothing would change that.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Main]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point. I do not have a legal brain, but it might be possible to sort that out. My view is that if, in the course of a conversation, somebody makes a general point about how things can best be moved forward, that is hardly the same as saying, “Here is the mobile telephone number. I’m sure the Minister will meet you for lunch.” or, “How about we have a catch-up over coffee and I will tell you all about this new project I’m trying to push in your area.” I do not feel that those two things are the same.

I am willing—as, I am sure, are many hon. Members—to take on board any improvements that make the Bill deliver what most of us want it to deliver. We can put exceptions and guidance in the Bill, and I included in the new clause clarifications such as

“anything done in response to or compliance with a court order;

anything done for the purpose of complying with a requirement under an enactment;

a public response to an invitation to information or evidence;…

a formal response to a public invitation to tender;

anything done by a person acting in official capacity on behalf of a government organisation;”.

I have tried to include exclusions, and I am more than happy for people to add others if they think they could word the new clause better. We want to get rid of cosy chats, pressure behind the scenes, and people with the big money—£12 million in my constituency has been spent in trying to get this through, which is probably peanuts compared with some other industries.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs Main]

I am just about to draw to a close because I would like to hear about the amendments tabled by other Members. This is not about filibustering or talking out the Bill today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

Even that most brutal sport, boxing, has a code of honour so that when an opponent is bloody, battered and exhausted, they are not kept in the ring but we try—if we can—to deliver the coup de grâce. I do not like witnessing the parliamentary equivalent of propping up the opponent. In virtually every aspect, this Bill is battered, bloodied, and ready to fall over. Rather than the grizzled cornermen, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Leader of the House are pushing in some game bantamweights to keep the fight going. They are good people, but they are not here today. They are putting other people up to argue for a Bill that was not their doing. Rather than that, we should end this cruel sport and do what the all-party Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform proposed, once it was allowed to report and get engaged in this process. It proposed that the Bill be put into a special Committee so it that could be discussed and got right—not delayed, but brought back to the House as a new Bill that does the business for everybody—within six months. I argue that there would be a strong consensus behind that new Bill.

We have worked hard and I pay tribute to my Committee, two members of which—the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) and my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn)—are present in the debate. Other members are on shift to come and do their turn over the next three days. Both they, and members of staff who worked incredibly hard to get a report in front of Members in about seven working days, deserve the utmost credit.

I believe in evidence-based policy making. Through that period of about seven days, we called for, sought and proactively received evidence that provided a welter of overwhelming information to say that the Bill does not work or do what it promised to do. This Bill does not do what it should say on the can—I do not know whether the Trade Descriptions Act applies in the House of Commons, but if it did there would be a strong case for putting somebody at least in front of a magistrate. This is not the lobbying Bill, it is the 1% lobbying Bill. Most of the problems that have been identified across the House, in the media and elsewhere, will not be affected or tackled by the Bill.

As well as producing a massive wodge of evidence for Members to interpret, my Committee also proposed a number of amendments designed to make the Bill what it should be—a genuine lobbying Bill. In clause 1, as part of our long debate over the next three days, we are attempting to ask: who are the lobbyists? When one lobbying group’s trade association says, “We think maybe 20% of lobbyists will be covered” and another says, “1% of lobbyists will be covered”, there is clearly a massive welter of people who do what we normally think of as lobbying but who will not be covered.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I would like to understand how many people the hon. Gentleman believes will be required to register as a lobbyist under the proposals that he and his Committee have put forward.

[Mr Allen]

Under the Government proposals, the Public Relations Consultants Association says that fewer than 1% of meetings with Ministers take place by consultants without the clients present. Transparency International states that the Government are not even going to capture the 20% of the industry that they have identified as the reason for the register. One can choose whatever figure one wishes.

On the earlier intervention by the Deputy Leader of the House, I say gently that this is not a choice between 100% of everything we regard as lobbying being registered and enormous bureaucracy, and 1% being registered. Let us grow up, have a debate, and find a happy medium. It does not have to be perfect the first time, but it certainly does not need to be as imperfect as this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

In following the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), let me say that I am surprised that he did not rest his rebuttal of the arguments about amendment 76 on clause 4, which clearly shows that the register—in the way it deals with persons—would cover those exact points. However, that does not fully allay the concerns we should have when we see the Government’s amendments to what is already a highly flawed Bill, not least Government amendments 92 to 95 to schedule 1, about which I am sure we will hear from the Government.

Like others, I do not want to take up too much time now, given the range of issues that we need to reach in order to deal with the layers of inadequacy and evasion that are, to my mind, deliberately built into the Bill. The Government who told us that lobbying was the next big scandal have basically come up with the narrowest of nets to deal with professional lobbying, restricting it not to professional lobbying as we all know and understand it—lobbying as we see it practised in and around the parliamentary estate and elsewhere in public life, at various levels of government—but to a narrow definition of “consultant lobbying”.

We have a net that is deliberately narrow, made up of holes that are deliberately wide. That is why I welcome the amendments from the Opposition Front Bench and the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, which would ensure a wider net with smaller holes. If Parliament achieves that, we will have done something for our credibility, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) said. However, if we remain with the Bill as provided by the Government, or if we amend it in the way they have proposed, Parliament will be open not just to ridicule, but to suspicion. Why would we go along with a glaringly inadequate Bill? Why would we fail to respond to the representations that have come from so many people in the business who will not be affected—I am sure that some will be happily unaffected—but are bemused at what the Government have produced in part 1?

I know that we looked at the Bill more widely on Second Reading, Mr Caton, but I hope it is in order to make the argument in the debate about this group of amendments and part 1 that it is hard for people not to be suspicious when they see the lobbying to be registered so narrowly defined in part 1, and the issues to be covered in part 2 so widely scoped. As many hon. Members who have spoken have pointed out, none of the lobbying scandals that have happened in recent years—not even those during the life of this Parliament—would have been ameliorated or mitigated in any way by the scope of this Bill. Instead of pretending that it will solve the next big scandal, let us be clear: it would not have addressed any of the big, small or medium scandals that we have seen in the last few years. That has to be a matter of design on the part of the Government. They cannot have missed all those points just as a matter of haphazard chance and sloppy drafting. To my mind, the scoping in part 1 is deliberately evasive.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

The Government have already said that they are trying to fix a specific issue relating to a gap in transparency. I do not think I got an answer from the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), so can the hon. Gentleman explain how many people he thinks will be required to register under the amendments we are discussing? Does he believe that MPs should also make a declaration whenever they meet a lobbyist, be they in-house, or from a trade union or a charity?

[Mark Durkan]

As other hon. Members have said, we do need a lobbying Bill, but we needed more consultation and proper pre-legislative scrutiny precisely to determine how many people would be caught and whether they should be comfortably caught under this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

This has been a fascinating debate, and I shall not repeat the points that have already been made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) and other colleagues across the Committee. I want to bring some of my own experience to the Chamber. Fundamentally, what is wrong with this part of the Bill is that it does not reflect any kind of understanding of the lobbying industry, of which I am a proud ex-member.

The lobbying industry has changed dramatically since I first joined it in 1998. I worked for a consultancy that, if it existed today, would be caught by the Bill’s provisions because it was a dedicated Government relations lobbying agency. However, the industry has changed and most public affairs firms are now part of wider communications groups, on which the Bill will have no impact. I worked in the industry between 1998 and 2003, and it gave me a fantastic opportunity to learn many things and to engage in the political process.

We should be clear that the lobbying industry is important to a fair and democratic society. It is also important to us as Members of Parliament, in that it can help to inform and educate us on incredibly technical issues. We should not always view the industry with deep, dark suspicion. The only point in the debate that I have disagreed with so far was the description of lobbyists as mendacious and as performing some kind of dark arts. That is incredibly unfair, because most lobbyists are highly professional and very proud of what they do. They want transparency in their industry, and they want a level playing field. The Bill delivers neither. If anything, it could make the industry more opaque, and it will certainly not produce a more level playing field.

I would like to give the House an example from my own experience. Between 2005 and 2010, I was head of public affairs for Aviva. It was known as Norwich Union when I joined it, but it subsequently changed its name. We had a large lobbying team here in the UK and in Europe. As I look around the Chamber, I can see many people whom I, as head of public affairs, probably would have lobbied.

My lobbying team would not have been covered by the provisions in the Bill. We employed a major City law firm to provide specific counsel on legislative issues. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon has pointed out, such lawyers will not be covered by the Bill either. We also employed a consultancy that provided public affairs advice and was part of a wider group; it, too, would not be included in the Bill. We worked closely, too, with trade associations, which again would not be included. If we paid for research by a think-tank and lobbied on the outcome, that, too, would not be included in the Bill.

It is therefore quite clear that this part of the Bill needs to be taken off the table and looked at again, particularly in respect of expanding the definitions. I have a great deal of sympathy with the Opposition Front-Bench team’s amendment, as does the Association of Professional Political Consultants, because it wants a level playing field. Those of us who have worked in the industry consider ourselves professional lobbyists, not just consultant lobbyists.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point, but does she agree that the transparency shown by publishing ministerial diaries, including the companies that Ministers meet and the purpose of the meetings, fulfils that role, and that trying to extend the law is effectively using a sledgehammer to crack a small nut, which concerns the PR industry in particular?

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s concerns, but I think she is debating something we are likely to discuss next week. Does she agree that we should not allow the conscience of Russia and China to be our conscience when we are considering potential action?

[Lorely Burt]

I entirely agree. I am not suggesting that we take no action; I simply think that we must have international approval before taking that step.

Having bombed supposed chemical weapons sites, what then? With all that human suffering, surely we should intervene further. As the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) commented, would we really want to allow President Assad to win? Several hon. Members have expressed concern about military action and they, like me, fear mission creep. Not every member of the public has researched these issues in detail, but they have a strong feeling. Only one person in four supports military action. Members of my own party are fearful of that and have urged me to vote against. Even the chambermaid at my hotel yesterday, before I left my family holiday in Wales, said to me, “Please don’t let them vote for war.” I will not.

In summary, I do support action, as I said to the hon. Lady, but under the present circumstances, not a military solution.

EU Council and Woolwich

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Thank you for your patience, Mr Speaker.

Let me ask the Prime Minister about energy, which was a big part of the EU Council. It is important that we take advantage and encourage the Commission to deregulate so that we can exploit our own resources not just in this country but in other countries, too, so that we are not reliant on states outside the European Union for our future energy needs.

Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to contribute to the debate. I have spent the past several hours, since 2.30 pm, here in the Chamber listening to the extraordinary speeches. I want to single out my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who spoke so eloquently and movingly about when Mrs Thatcher visited troops in a military hospital in Northern Ireland. I also want to thank my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. This may sound like a bit of creeping; it is not intended to be. As on many occasions he just got it right, as in the mixing in of lightness, reflecting the personal touches that Margaret Thatcher brought to her role as Prime Minister in Downing street and in Parliament. I also want to thank the Leader of the Opposition. He paid a very generous tribute today, and reflected well on the element of statesmanship that we should all aspire to.

There is no question but that Margaret Thatcher defined politics for a decade, if not a generation, if not a lifetime. There are two other people I want to thank today. I want to thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing the debate to happen. I also want to thank the chaplain for the prayers that were said, which I thought were very special.

Margaret Thatcher was certainly an inspiration to many in this place, and many in the country. Even now, the polls after her death show that more than half the population thought she was a great Prime Minister; any party leader and Prime Minister would hope for such ratings. I expect that every Conservative Member elected in 2010 mentioned Margaret Thatcher as an inspiration in their selection speech. In fact, I expect those people who did not probably did not get selected. Dare I say it, although the great lady of course left office in 1990, her legacy lived on, and there is no doubt that the members of our party loved Margaret Thatcher, and I believe they were right to do so.

Of course Margaret Thatcher broke through the glass ceiling, becoming the first woman Prime Minister. It is said that she found it harder to become a Member of Parliament than she did Prime Minister, but both were herculean tasks, which she achieved, with the help of her male friends, some mentioned already—such as Airey Neave, who was assassinated—and the help and support of others. To her end she would encourage people to enter public and political life, and I think many women in Parliament today are here for that reason.

Of course, Margaret Thatcher was the only science graduate to be Prime Minister. History or perhaps thinking about the weight of history was not for her. In fact, she made history. Her skills as a scientist, in the use of data and rigorous analysis, were an important part of what persuaded her. Her view could be changed if someone had the facts, rather than the emotions of other subjects.

I read chemistry at Oxford and I chose her college, because I had fallen in love with Margaret Thatcher by then. I had done so because I grew up in Liverpool. Hon. Members have talked about communities transformed, and we have heard about the success of entrepreneurs and small business. Opposition Members may think that we look back through rose-tinted spectacles, but people’s lives really were changed. People were released; they were allowed to choose, to get on and to be free.

Of course there were impacts on communities, particularly those reliant on one major employer or industry. I lived in Liverpool when the riots happened. They did not affect my neighbourhood but they affected school friends, one of whom was supposed to come to stay with us to get away from the horrendous things that were happening. I also remember Derek Hatton, who said the most despicable thing yesterday. What I remember of him is that he destroyed my city. Militant Labour was the employer involved, and my parents, both teachers, were among the 30,000 who received their redundancy notices overnight. I have been hearing about how people were cast aside, but militant Labour tossed aside the clerk, the cleaner and the street sweeper, as well as the teacher. That is when I woke up and realised that politics mattered, and the following year I got involved in a by-election. Admittedly, the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) won that, but I stood up; I saw that Margaret Thatcher was leading the country and making a huge difference to people’s lives, and I wanted to be part of it.

The constituency I now represent perhaps benefited from some of the issues arising from the militancy of the dockers’ strike in Liverpool. Similar things happened elsewhere. Felixstowe grew as a port during that time. When Mrs Thatcher came to Felixstowe in 1986 to speak at the Conservative central council she referred to the modern industrial relations that the good trade unions had with their employers at the port of Felixstowe. We see the same thing now in much of our manufacturing industry, where some of the unions are working well. However, one thing she did was to ensure that it was the democratically elected Government who ran the country, bringing to an end to the closed shop, the “all out” and the flying pickets that crippled industry at the time.

I do not believe that Margaret Thatcher hated the state. What she hated was the state telling the people what they should want. She wanted the state to serve the people and put their needs first. She trusted people to choose. Her very first speech was about the private Member’s Bill in which she opened up council meetings to the press and the public; she made sure that happened. She also did things such as putting parents on school governing bodies so that they were involved in the direction of the schools. She had backed the police, of course, but she had recognised that there was trouble there and that there was a need to reinstate trust, so in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 she introduced the tape recording of evidence sessions. She started to bring those kinds of reforms in where they were needed.

Above all, Margaret Thatcher put the “Great” back into Great Britain, at no time more so than during the Falklands war. She believed in ideas and she trusted the people. She put that choice to the electorate three times, and the British public backed her, with an increasing number of votes from 1979 to 1987. She was truly my heroine. Margaret Thatcher, may she rest in peace.

European Council

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There was an understanding, particularly among the net contributor countries, that it was time for proper budget discipline and that previously countries had gone to these MFF negotiations and not focused on the fact that if we were controlling our budgets at home, there was a case for doing it properly in Europe. I am delighted we were able to achieve that.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Today is indeed a triumph for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I congratulate him—also, I might say that his wife designs very nice handbags, albeit out of my price range. Does he agree with the shadow Chancellor, who told the Yorkshire Post:

“If we allow ourselves…to be the ‘status quo party’ on Europe, or the ‘anti-referendum party’…we’ve got a problem,”

and that

“we would be pretty stupid to allow ourselves to get into either of those positions”?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point: we have a clear plan in place for sorting out reform in Europe and putting that reform to the British people. The accusation against us is that this could cause uncertainty, but the argument I would make is this. What could be greater uncertainty than Labour’s position? One minute the Opposition are in favour of a referendum and the next minute they are against it. They really have to sort out their position, come to the House and tell us what it is.