Lobbying

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I have had the same experience. I then have to dig into my files and discover the original document. I send that back to the constituent, who is often quite surprised to discover that they have been encouraged to lobby me in that way.

[Thomas Docherty]

I find myself agreeing with the hon. Lady. Does she accept that what her own Government are proposing would not cover charities or organisations like 38 Degrees?

[Harriett Baldwin]

What I accept is that the Government are the ones taking the steps to publish meetings with organisations that represent themselves with their public affairs professionals. The Government are doing much more in the way of transparency than the Opposition were able to do in 13 years of power. I would love to see members of the shadow Cabinet publish details of their meetings, and I strongly hope that as a result of my persuasive remarks this afternoon, those are steps that the Opposition will soon take.

Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Harriett Baldwin

Friday 9th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I am pleased to learn that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) does not propose to press her amendment. If I followed her argument correctly, amendments 8 and 14 would extend the effect of my Bill beyond what it was carefully drafted to do. I do not think that they are necessary, and I hope that we can move swiftly on to the next stage of the Bill.

[Thomas Docherty]

It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I approach the Bill with some interest, because I am a member of the Procedure Committee. As the House will know, we are currently examining the sitting hours of the House and, in particular, the way in which private Members’ Bills are dealt with on Fridays. A very small number of Members seem to have turned these occasions into what the Committee has jokingly termed “Chope Fridays”—and I note that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) is in the Chamber today. It is therefore welcome that that monopoly appears to have been broken, and that a worthwhile debate is now taking place.

I wonder whether today’s debate would have been better suited to a full day in Westminster Hall, given that there may be no Divisions on the Bill. Indeed, given yesterday’s announcement by the Deputy Prime Minister about the West Lothian commission—to which I suspect the Minister will wish to refer in his response—it might form part of the broader debate that we will have in that context. I realise that in speaking to the amendments tabled by me and by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) I am somewhat cup-tied, if I may use football parlance, when it comes to the realms on which I am permitted to touch, and I shall do my best not to be tempted to digress by Government Members. I know that we shall be able to engage in a slightly broader discussion on Third Reading. As I have said, I think that the debate is worth having, and probably worth having on the Floor of the House rather than at a Conservative party conference, where I believe that it would have taken place in three weeks’ time if the Deputy Prime Minister had not made his announcement about the West Lothian commission yesterday.

I am concerned about two aspects of the Bill, which all four amendments seek to address. The first is the issue of consultation.

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[Thomas Docherty]

Indeed. That is one of the two most obvious examples in the current Parliament of the difference between the appearance of legislation in its draft form which has not yet been subjected to the consultation that is so critical and its appearance at the presentation stage, when it is recognised that Members from all parts of the United Kingdom should be able to vote on it. The other example is, as I say, the Scotland Bill. One would assume, given the title of that Bill, that Conservative Members would have taken no part in those proceedings, yet I am fairly certain that the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and I had a lively exchange on railways powers, which is a matter entirely for Westminster. That is where the power sits at the moment. The measure was about handing over a power. There is no better example of where there would be huge confusion than debates about the handing over of powers.

Another example we have been dealing with in recent weeks is police commissioners and the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill. Again, one might at draft stage say, “That is a matter for English and Welsh Members because powers on policing are covered by that.” However, it is possible, for example, that some territorial powers might have been granted.

Let me give an example in relation to future police powers. As the House will know, the Metropolitan police have responsibility for counter-terrorism and the commissioner of the week will be responsible for that. It is possible that we would have a police Bill that deals largely, for example, with the merging of police forces in England and/or Wales, but that has a chunk that deals with counter-terrorism and the powers of the Metropolitan police as they affect Scotland and perhaps Northern Ireland. That might get added somewhere between the consultation stage and the presentation stage. That is why the measure is flawed.

I would be grateful if the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) could answer one question, if she is not getting pastoral care from her Front-Bench colleagues, who I think are giving her some helpful advice. She talks about the Secretary of State providing statements. Will she clarify whether the measure would equally apply to private Members’ Bills and, if so, who would provide the statements on those? Would it be the hon. Lady in her current capacity, although I am sure that one day she will be a Secretary of State? Is the measure purely about Government Bills, or is it also about Bills that are dealt with on a Friday?

[Harriett Baldwin]

The measure is carefully worded to exclude any mention of private Members' Bills, but, if the hon. Gentleman reads the comments of the Minister in Committee, he will see there is no reason to believe that, for example, Standing Orders and private Members' Bills could not be covered by this wording.

[Thomas Docherty]

That leads to another important point. I have huge sympathy with the arguments both ways and I will avoid getting drawn on another issue, but if that were not the position, the Government could, like in the 1960s, put a lot of contentious legislation—Jenkins did this in particular—in private Members' Bills that were effectively Government Bills. I know that there is always a temptation with newish Members to give them nice, easy private Members' Bills. If we take, for example, a ten-minute rule Bill, we get a dummy Bill that does not have any clauses. It is only at the presentation stage that there is some consultation. That is why it is important, given, if I understand it correctly, that the hon. Lady, with the Minister’s support, is saying that the Bill would equally apply—

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[Harriett Baldwin]

I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the wording in the Bill: there is nothing in it that would prevent him from continuing to vote on English matters, should he so choose. However, if a piece of legislation came forward and he could be confident, as a result of this Bill, that the measures in it would have no effect whatever on his constituents, he might feel comfortable writing to his constituents and saying, “Having looked closely at this piece of legislation, I feel comfortable that I might abstain from voting on it.”

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Lady has mentioned the upsurge of resentment in the correspondence that she got about a system that might be put in place. Does she understand the outrage in Scotland about the fact that 83% of people did not vote for David Cameron to be Prime Minister, yet the Scots are now stuck with him?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I am sure that colleagues on the Government side of the House are absolutely delighted that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) is the Prime Minister.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

My position is an English position. As a representative of an English constituency, I think that an increasingly large amount of the legislation that comes before the House affects England only and that if the House continues not to tackle this issue, it will increasingly become one that our constituents find extremely distressing.

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Lady is doing a superb job of not falling into the trap that some of her colleagues fall into of simply being anti-Scottish or very bad losers. Does she accept, however, that large chunks of legislation, such as the measures concerning the Olympics, affect only one region of England? Is she saying that her ultimate goal is that only MPs from the affected regions should be allowed to vote on such measures—I am looking at the Minister, because I am pretty sure that a Bill went through recently that specifically affected his region—or will it be a case of Worcestershire imposing itself on London?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that nothing is further from my intention than to revisit the regional question, which was so resoundingly defeated by the voters of the north-east as a complete white elephant. I am talking about England—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands what we mean by England—and I am talking about issues that increasingly come before this Chamber that refer just to England.

I want to thank colleagues, the Minister and those who worked so hard on the Bill in Committee for allowing us to reach the stage in the debate where I can reiterate what the Bill does. It essentially does three things. In developing those three things, it has drawn on the work of those much wiser, more experienced and more eminent than myself. I am a mere new Member of the House, so I was able to benefit from learning about the recommendations that have come through a couple of sources. Let me start by reading from the recommendations of the Justice Committee in the previous Parliament.

In 2009, the Justice Committee prepared a report called “Devolution: A Decade On”. In its conclusions and recommendations, it said:

“The question of whether England-only legislation can be more clearly demarcated from other legislation has to be resolved if any scheme of English votes for English laws is to work.”

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[Harriett Baldwin]

I am not saying, am I, that a lot of legislation will have those characteristics, but some legislation will, and there will be more and more of it as we devolve more and more powers to other parts of the UK. So why not know about that when such legislation comes before the House? Indeed, as the hon. Gentleman points out with his example, there may well be knock-on consequences for other parts of the UK, in which case that would be very apparent to him.

I was mentioning some of the eminent minds that have informed the Bill. I also drew heavily on a piece of work that was done by the Conservative party in opposition. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) is now Secretary of State for Justice, but in those days he chaired the democracy taskforce. He prepared a committee that included my hon. Friends the Members for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) and for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) and none other than our distinguished Leader of the House. They came up with recommendations for dealing with the democratic deficit on this constitutional issue.

One suggestion was that Standing Orders might be used. Some of the examples given mentioned Standing Order No. 97, which was formerly used to deal with Scotland-only legislation. As I understand it, however, some of the academic reaction was that it might put the Speaker in a very awkward position, were he asked to certify that a piece of legislation applied to England only.

The Bill is designed to address that challenge for the Speaker, because we would certainly not want to politicise the Chair. Goodness me, this is so far above my pay grade that I feel I should not be trespassing on these areas at all, but the provision of more information in draft legislation would make it easier for the Speaker to use his powers or to allow the House to agree changes recommended by the Procedure Committee in 1999— I am sure the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) will allude to that in a moment—to alter some of the Standing Orders to allow certification of Bills as applying to other parts of the UK.

[Thomas Docherty]

It is always comforting to hear that some Conservative MPs have the best interests of the Speaker at heart. Surely the role of the Speaker is to be the impartial judge. I suggest that there is the possibility of a Secretary of State having a vested interest in ruling one way or the other whether or not all MPs should be allowed to vote on a piece of legislation. That would be most unsatisfactory, would it not?

[Harriett Baldwin]

That is why my Bill gives much more ample time for pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft legislation setting out these issues, and setting out very clearly whether there are any financial implications. I am sure that as the hon. Gentleman is a member of the Procedure Committee, he has looked at those 1999 recommendations.

I shall now speak about the news that we got yesterday. I take the opportunity to welcome very warmly the announcement that the Minister made yesterday that he is about to establish at long last a commission to examine the West Lothian question. Throughout these proceedings, the Minister has been exemplary in recognising that the Government need to look at that issue. As we know, he is an extremely busy Minister, and he has had a number of other pieces of crucial legislation to get through. I have asked myself on occasions when the commission might be established. We got a little more information in yesterday’s written ministerial statement, but if I may, I shall take the opportunity to ask the Minister some detailed questions about how he anticipates the questions left unanswered by his statement might be resolved.

The statement referred to the commission being established in the weeks following the return of Parliament in October. The Minister has also spoken about his intention to set up the commission by the end of 2011. Colleagues have heard that said many times. I think we can deduce that we will have an announcement of the commission between our return in October and 31 December. First, will the Minister confirm that that is the correct understanding?

Secondly, what will be the commission’s instructions about its timetable for reporting? I acknowledge that the Minister has been busy steering a lot of legislation through the House, but I am worried that it has taken until now to receive a written ministerial statement about the commission’s establishment. When the commission is established before the end of the year, what instructions will he give it about reporting back? Specifically, will it report before the end of the Session, so that any legislation required to put in place its recommendations may be included in the next Queen’s Speech? I do not think that we know when the next Queen’s Speech will be, but we have a hunch that it might be some time around May.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman raises important questions, and we will want to know who will serve on the commission.

If the commission recommends changes to procedure, will they be binding on us, or will we have the opportunity to debate them? How will its recommendations fit in with the draft Bill on changes to the other place, because that could involve important consequences? When we have raised the West Lothian question over the past few months, I have been concerned that some ministerial replies have linked it to the proposed changes to membership of the other place. Whatever one’s view of those changes, we all agree that they are unlikely to be made quickly. During this Parliament, the resolution of the West Lothian question, to use today’s shorthand—or the English question—is more urgent than reform of the other Chamber, so I would not want progress on this issue to be delayed due to the necessarily slow progress of legislation to reform the other place.

I reiterate that the Minister has been exceptionally helpful and insightful, and while I welcome yesterday’s announcement about the commission’s establishment, the written ministerial statement contained a lot of unanswered questions. I therefore again ask the crucial question whether any legislation that might be required to enact the commission’s recommendations will be in the next Queen’s Speech. We cannot delay dealing with this point for much longer. If the commission recommends legislative changes, they need to be in the next Queen’s Speech, so that they can be tackled in the next parliamentary Session. As we have heard, these complex issues will require time for consideration, but following the process, I would want any necessary changes to tackle the remaining unanswered English constitutional issues to be in place before the next general election. The Bill has already had an impact.

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Lady makes a compelling argument in support of her position, but she has not addressed the position of Secretaries of State and Ministers. As part of the process that she wishes to put in place, does she think that Members of this House and the other place who are considered to be Scottish, Welsh or from Northern Ireland should not be allowed to serve as Ministers in a Department or, if they are Ministers, to vote on their own Department’s legislation?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I am sure that the commission will want to consider that important question. I have proposed a modest approach, so the hon. Gentleman is asking a question that is way above my pay grade. My Bill contains a modest suggestion that is based on the accumulated wisdom of the democracy taskforce and those members of the Justice Committee at the time of its 2009 report.

I know that the Minister is aware of the controversy about which I have spoken, given his intention to address the matter through the commission, but even if he cannot give us a complete answer today, we will all want to hear from him that there is a sense of urgency about resolving the situation during this Parliament. I remind colleagues that the Bill is the only vehicle available for hon. Members who want this great constitutional issue to be addressed. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s replies to my questions but, for the time being, I commend the Bill to the House.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

I thank the Minister for his clarification, but I am not sure that I heard within it a specific timetable that he had in mind. I would expect an out date for the commission to be some time within the current Session. I would probably accept that it could potentially be as long as 12 months after its establishment, but I would consider even that to be quite a long time, given that it has taken us 16 months to get a written ministerial statement giving notice that it would be established.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am torn here. The hon. Lady has made some valid points, and I too am baffled by what the commission is all about if it is not about kicking the issue into the long grass. However—now I am jumping to the Minister’s defence—this is a vastly complex issue, and trying to resolve it in the few months between Christmas and next summer might not do it due service.

[Harriett Baldwin]

That gives me increasing grounds for worry about how people might be able to use a commission that has been given no specific timetable or out date as a way of delaying and stalling for a considerable time.

On the issue of the timetable and the out date, if the Bill has done nothing else it has concentrated the Government’s mind on their own business. I therefore wish to test the will of the House.

Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Superannuation Bill

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

I can think of many privatised companies, as I am sure many colleagues can—I am thinking of British Energy and others—that have generous, multi-year severance packages, so it is wrong to say that we find them nowhere in the private sector.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have obviously been in completely the wrong line of work, given that I was unaware of such significant redundancy packages.

We all recognise that people are reluctant to make employees redundant, and that they would make every effort to move people to new jobs. However, the Minister made an important point when he said that when redundancies need to happen, people want to avoid the situation in which the most recently hired and lowest paid are let go because decision making is distorted by the packages that must be offered to more highly paid people who have been with a company for a long time.

We can also acknowledge that when redundancies are made in the civil service—I gather that in the three years from 2005, there were 16,500 redundancies, which cost the public purse about £1 billion at an average of about £60,000 per redundancy—the money must be found from the taxpayer. I differ from my colleagues who said that the decision to introduce the Bill was made because of the deficit. I submit that even if we did not have a deficit, the sums of money being paid out in redundancy would seem no less huge.

We have talked a lot about fairness in today’s debate. Is it fair that some of the taxes paid by an individual who finds work after being made redundant in the private sector—the average redundancy payment in the private sector is approximately £9,000—go to pay significant redundancy payments in the civil service? We all agree that something must be done, and as the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) said, the CSCS is simply not appropriate for a modern civil service.

It would be right to do something about the situation in good times, just as it is right to do something in tough times, but it would clearly be better, as everyone agrees, if the unions and the Government successfully negotiated a change. It would be more attractive if the redundancies that are being discussed were voluntary. It is often the case that managing a redundancy process that has a significantly more generous voluntary element makes the process much less painful for the work force. In addition, it would be better if we negotiated a change so that the public sector is more vigorous and stronger when new jobs are created. It is one of the counter-intuitive laws of economics that companies that have very generous severance terms tend to hire fewer people than companies that are more flexible. It is also counter-intuitive that the mobility of staff within organisations that have more flexible employment terms is improved. That can often help with morale and job satisfaction.

We have spoken today about protecting the lowest-paid, but perhaps we should talk less about protecting them and recognise that the more junior staff are often able to move up. In other words, instead of talking about protecting junior staff, let us talk about promoting and creating more opportunity for mobility for them within the organisation.

It is also been observed that similar counter-intuitive laws of economics apply to countries. Countries that have more flexible employment laws have much stronger periods of job creation when they move into economic recovery.

I agree with colleagues on both sides of the House that it is a shame that we have to discuss the Bill and that it would be much better if we came to a successfully negotiated conclusion. Let us hope that while the Bill goes through Parliament, the negotiations bring about a more reasonable scheme that is both affordable for the public purse and fair to the very many valuable public servants who are covered by the current scheme.