Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Oliver Heald

Friday 9th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Heald]

I completely disagree. The hon. Lady would give the Speaker no time at all. Under Standing Order No. 97, the Speaker has the time between the Bill first being printed and its presentation in which to decide whether or not to provide his certificate. Her proposals would provide no such time. The Bill would simply be presented; the helpful information from the Secretary of State would not be given to the Speaker before that point.

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

The hon. Gentleman is flipping between the Speaker and the Secretary of State. Under the Scottish procedure, it is the Speaker who provides the certificate, but the Bill talks about the Secretary of State doing so. These are two separate procedures.

[Oliver Heald]

The hon. Gentleman ought to think in terms of the partnership that my hon. Friend’s Bill would create. She is proposing that the Minister would help the Speaker. Is not that a good thing? The Secretary of State would provide the Speaker with a statement setting out the territorial, legal and financial effects of the Bill. It would give him time and provide a draft Bill process for complicated cases in which there were issues on the margin. It would provide a helpful extra arrow to the bow. It is a good thing and I certainly support it. The amendments would damage that process, however, because there would be no draft Bill, and no time between a Bill’s first printing and its presentation for these matters to be considered, because the rule would apply only when it was presented. These are wrecking amendments, because they endanger the spirit of co-operation that my hon. Friend is trying to engender between the Government and the Speaker in deciding whether a measure should be dealt with under an English procedure. I therefore oppose them.

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[Oliver Heald]

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that we already have a procedure for certifying that a Bill is Scottish—

[Thomas Docherty]

Through the Speaker.

[Oliver Heald]

Yes. We did it for years. Those Bills created no real difficulty. My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire offers an additional opportunity through the draft Bill process for any cases on the margins. It is not a question of changing our procedures. We already have a procedure that deals with the matter for Scotland, so why not have one for England?

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[Thomas Docherty]

If we are to have such a system—and there has been some discussion of Standing Order No. 97—that is indeed what happens. That is the point that the hon. Member for Bedfordshire—

[Oliver Heald]

My constituency is in Hertfordshire.

[Thomas Docherty]

I apologise. It just goes to show the benefits of living in a United Kingdom; otherwise I would not be learning that geography lesson.

Under that rule, the Speaker makes the decision. You would, Mr Deputy Speaker, pull me up if I followed the example of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and gave seven centuries’ worth of history on the role of the Speaker and how it has changed—and, indeed, the excellent role of the Chairman of Ways and Means and how it has changed in the past 700 years. The Speaker’s role is to be an impartial judge. To give a simple example, let us say for the sake of argument that Mr Murdo Fraser becomes leader of this new party. If he wants a name for a party that supports the Conservatives at that level, that backs Tory policies but is not officially Tory, I must counsel him that the title “Liberal Democrats” has already been taken, so he will have to think of another one. If Mr Fraser’s new party were to win 27 of the 51 or 52 seats that there will be in Scotland at the next general election, but thanks to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), we were to sweep to power at the next general election, it might well be possible—

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[Oliver Heald]

The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) made an engaging speech, but he did not let the facts get in the way of his argument. I felt a bit sorry for Lord Strathclyde, because he lives in Scotland and is Scottish, so to be described as having no connection with the country will have been a bitter blow. Equally, it was slightly unfair on the rest of us to be told that we knew nothing about Cumbria or Scotland, given that some of us love walking in the lakes and visit Scotland regularly. But there we go!

I was struck by something else that the hon. Gentleman said. He spoke as though the Conservative party invented the West Lothian question—as though it was a sort of Conservative plot. In truth, of course, the question was posed by a Scottish Labour MP, the former Father of the House, Tam Dalyell. He was the one who asked whether it could be right for Scottish Members to vote on English legislation, when they had no right to do so on Scottish legislation and English Members did not have that right either. Following his speeches during the debates on the Scotland Act 1998, Conservative Members, including Michael Ancram, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), now the Secretary of State for Defence, and I came up with the policy of English votes for English laws to address the West Lothian question. Since then, the Conservative party has had a great deal of work done on the question—the democracy taskforce has been mentioned—and has come to the conclusion that something could be done to address the problem.

The democracy taskforce looked at the Standing Orders of the House. For many years, Standing Order No. 97 has been used for these purposes for Scottish legislation. It is not right to suggest, as the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife did, that these Standing Orders would always be used in a hostile, unco-operative way. The fact is that we do have a book of Standing Orders, the House does operate by them and largely there is a consensual approach, through the usual channels, that ensures that we can do our business. I do not think therefore that he ought to be suspicious that, just because we would introduce a new Standing Order, suddenly the history and traditions of the House would change and we would use the procedures to be hostile to each other. Over the years, each of the great parties has been in government and opposition, and were one party to start behaving as though the Standing Orders were a battleground and try to “get” the other party, it would reap the whirlwind in due course. We rely on being able to do our business in a consensual way and the usual channels co-operate well, so I do not think that he should be so suspicious.

To deal with English legislation, we would simply need to add to Standing Order No. 97, in line 3, page 91 of our Standing Orders, the words “or England”, make the necessary consequential amendment and set up an English Grand Committee.

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman makes a compelling argument, but unfortunately that is not what the Bill does; it makes the Secretary of State responsible for determining the matter, not the Speaker.

[Oliver Heald]

That brings me to my next point. The Standing Order is not written in such a way as to disadvantage one party or another or to be used in a hostile way. It is drafted, and has been in our Standing Orders for many years, in a way that has a bit of common sense. It provides that if there are consequential amendments affecting England, Wales or Northern Ireland, the certificate can be withheld—but it does not have to be. The Speaker has some discretion. Equally, it is not compulsory under this particular Standing Order for a Bill certified as entirely Scottish to be dealt with by the Scottish Grand Committee—it is discretionary. If the usual channels discussed the matter and decided, “No, this ought to be dealt with by the whole House”, that could happen. We are not as daft as the hon. Gentleman thinks. We would not have Standing Orders so rigid that they could not work and could be used as a tool of war. We have sensible Standing Orders, we are sensible people when it comes to procedure, and I think that the House would be quite capable of dealing with this matter.

I welcome the fact that the Minister is setting up his commission and I welcome the Bill presented by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin). It would give a little more room for manoeuvre over controversial measures or measures on the margins of territoriality. With her measure in place, instead of a Bill simply being printed and the Speaker deciding whether to issue a certificate, there would be pre-legislative scrutiny. The Bill would be produced; it would go through its pre-legislative scrutiny; and it would contain a statement by the Secretary of State on his view of the territoriality, the financial aspects and so on. That would give us even more opportunity to ensure that our Standing Orders are not used in a foolish way.