Business of the House

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Lady will know that, in part because of the particularly bad weather we have recently had, there has been a considerable uplift in money given to local authorities to tackle precisely the types of issues that she raises. Although that money was not strictly ringfenced, we want to be assured it has been spent on those things correctly, and all local authorities are required to place in the public domain, I think on 15 March, what they have done with that money and what repairs they have carried out. It is extremely important that that work is done. We want to ensure that it is being done and has been done, and I am sure the hon. Lady will be able to find out exactly what has been spent and on what.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The Leader of the House will have heard my challenge to Cabinet Office Ministers earlier about the worrying uncertainty swirling around the inspectorate for migration, immigration and borders after the sacking of David Neal, and it is disappointing that we have both not had a statement from the Home Office given the urgency of the situation and failed to get the urgent question I applied for on behalf of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. The issue is not just the status of the 15 unpublished reports—some unpublished for a very long time—but uncertainty about the status of the inspectorate and whether it can carry on with its current work and reviews, let alone take up its scheduled reviews and address how they will be reported in future, until we have a new inspector, which could take at least six months. Will the Leader of the House urgently get clarification from the Home Office about the working of this very important inspectorate on a very topical issue?

[Penny Mordaunt]

My hon. Friend raises an important matter. The Home Secretary will not be at the Dispatch Box for questions until 15 April. I will raise this matter with the Home Secretary on behalf of my hon. Friend and the Committee on which he serves and ask him to update the Committee and this House.

Business of the House

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am very sorry to hear about the situation in the hon. Lady’s constituency. Will she share some more information with my office? The Home Office may not be the Department that is best placed to help her; it may well be the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, which is responsible for some of the new powers that we have introduced to protect homeowners and those in the rented sector with regard to poor landlords. I will be happy to assist the hon. Lady, and I hope we can help her get this matter resolved for her constituents.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to my right hon. Friend for her magnificence at the coronation. I am disappointed that she has not been asked to reprieve her role on the Eurovision stage, or at least read out the votes of the UK jury.

A less welcome guest at the coronation was the vice- president of China. This week, we hear that a British Trade Minister is feting the Chinese in Hong Kong and the Foreign Secretary is looking forward to a visit to China, as if the Chinese genocide were not still continuing, the Chinese Government were not continuing to flout international law and five Members of the House, including me, were not still sanctioned by the Chinese Communist party Government. May we have a debate on exactly what our relationship is with China going forward, and about making sure that every opportunity for meetings is prefaced by our calling out China’s continued abuses? We need a progress report on what is being done to lift the sanctions on five Members of the House, which is an insult to this House.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks regarding myself. He will know that the Foreign Secretary has recently set out his approach on China, and he knows how to apply for a debate on such a matter. I know the issue is of immense concern to Members from all parts of the House. While we know why we need to have that relationship and why it is incredibly important, given the size of the economy and our supply chains, it is important that we raise the ongoing breaches and abuses of human rights, as well as the matter he raises that concerns him directly. Foreign Office questions are a little way off, so I will make sure that the Foreign Secretary has heard what he has said today.

Business of the House

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I know the whole House will want to join with the sentiments she has expressed not just for the immediate family affected but all their classmates and the whole community. The Department for Education and the partners it works with have good practice and measures that can be put in place when a community has gone through this type of shocking event, and I will be very happy after this session to facilitate a meeting between the hon. Lady and someone from that Department who can assist her in that respect.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

You, Mr Speaker, are of course very familiar with my Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019, section 3 of which obliges the Secretary of State to produce a report on pregnancy loss and section 4 of which obliges the Secretary of State for Justice to produce a report on coroners investigations into stillbirths. This Act became law in February 2019, the last meeting of the pregnancy loss review advisory panel was in October 2018 and the consultation on the coroners issue closed on 18 June 2019. I have been trying to get meetings with the Under-Secretaries at Health and at Justice for the last six months, and I have raised this issue every time I am at Health or Justice questions, but that meeting has been cancelled, postponed or changed six times since Christmas alone, most recently this Monday, when one of the Ministers had the wrong date in the diary and then the date he did have he could not do either. This is really important and this is really shoddy treatment when trying to get support to get through legislation that the House has agreed to. Will the Leader of the House use her best offices to bang some heads together and get that meeting with those officials and me so that we can progress this important legislation?

[Penny Mordaunt]

That is an appalling situation and I am very sorry to hear about it. I will, after this session, raise it with the Secretary of State and the permanent secretary at that Department and ask them to get in touch with my hon. Friend’s office to set up those meetings. It is right that we make progress; this is a matter of law.

Standards: Code of Conduct and Guide to the Rules

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Absolutely; I completely concur with every single word that the hon. Gentleman has said, not only just now but in his speech earlier. He and the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire have made the point that we are in the business not only of setting up rules but of trying to change the culture. That is normally a more difficult process, and I will come on to that.

If I might irritate the House briefly, a constituent has asked me to remind everyone that we pronounce “Rhondda” as “Rhontha”, with the “dd” sounding like a “th”. I apologise to everybody.

Advent is, as we know, a penitential season, and it was the 35th anniversary of my ordination as a priest last week, so let me start with my traditional confession that I am no better than any other Member in the House, with not just feet of clay but ankles, calves and thighs. I have to say that, as I look round the Chamber every day, I see colleagues of different stripes and from different parties who have made considerable contributions, often way beyond the call of duty, to our national life. Politics really is an honourable profession, but it is also true that the public want us to do better.

I am painfully aware that 18 Members of this House have been suspended or have withdrawn for a day or more during this Parliament. That is quite a significant number. That may in part be because we are getting our act together, and that things that were formerly swept under the Pugin carpet are now dealt with not secretly and behind closed doors but through a proper process. I am also conscious that on top of that we have 15 Members in the independent group who have been suspended from their political parties, and justice sometimes comes through these processes very slowly. That is not fair to complainants, and it is not fair to the Members either. I want to make sure that Members are entitled to fairness. That is why I want us to have a set of rules that is clear, simple and unambiguous, and it genuinely worries me, as I know it does the whole Committee, that we now have 12 separate bodies that regulate Members of Parliament, and that we are now even considering creating a 13th. Whether that is right, I hate to think. I am sightly conscious, however, that other countries have it even worse. The House ethics manual in the United States of America consists of 456 pages, so I think we have been remarkably concise.

I am grateful to the Committee, and especially to its lay members: Mehmuda Mian, Tammy Banks, Rita Dexter, Michael Maguire, Paul Thorogood and Victoria Smith, plus the former members who played a part in getting us to this point, Arun Midha and Jane Burgess. This has been a long, iterative process, and the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin)—who I sort of think of as the deputy Chair of the Committee—is absolutely right to suggest that the lay members often bring an insight, as we bring an insight to them, that results in a creative mix that is in the interests of the whole House.

Let me deal briefly with a few important changes that we are making as a result of today’s motion, because it is important that Members understand them. First, we are completely banning MPs from providing paid parliamentary advice, including providing or agreeing to provide services as a parliamentary adviser, consultant or strategist. I believe that that always was, effectively, selling the title of MP on the open market.

Secondly, we are requiring a Member who takes on an outside role to obtain a written contract or a written statement of particulars detailing their duties. The contract, or a separate letter of undertaking, must specify that the Member’s duties will not include lobbying Ministers, MPs or public officials on behalf of the employer, or providing paid parliamentary advice, and that the employer may not ask them to do so. I think that is a very good defence for a Member who takes on outside earnings.

Thirdly, we are significantly tightening the rules on conflicts of interest resulting from outside interests by extending, from six months to 12 months, the period during which an MP cannot engage in lobbying on a matter in which they have a financial interest.

Fourthly, we are closing the “serious wrong” loophole that Owen Paterson sought to exploit. From now on, if a Member wants to claim this exemption when approaching a Minister or official, they must show that any benefit to their client is merely incidental to the resolution of the wrong or injustice. They must state at the outset that they are providing evidence of a serious wrong, and they may not make repeated approaches, otherwise it just becomes a loophole through which they can drive a coach and horses. I am glad the Government now agree with us on that.

We are also ending the false distinction between a Member initiating and participating in a proceeding and an approach to a Minister or official where they have an outside financial interest. It is not enough simply to register and declare an outside interest. It is surely axiomatic that a Member who is in receipt of outside reward or consideration should not seek to confer a benefit through parliamentary or political means on the person or organisation providing that outside reward or consideration. That is paid advocacy and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) said, it has been banned in some shape or form since 1695.

I now turn to the matters on which the Government disagree with the Committee. First, like the other members of the Committee, I simply do not understand the Government’s argument on the Nolan principles. They have got it wrong, and it is not in the interests of the House or of individual Members to stick with the Government’s position. Acting on the advice of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which originated the Nolan principles, the Standards Committee drafted and consulted on more detailed descriptions of the individual words—selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership—as they apply specifically to Members of Parliament. Lord Evans, the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, told us:

“We strongly support the idea that although the seven principles remain central and important for standards issues right across the public realm, they need to be interpreted for particular institutions and organisations.”

That is why, for instance, the police have gone down precisely this route and produced their own set of descriptions.

More importantly, the Nolan principles need fleshing out in a parliamentary situation. What does “selflessness” mean in the context of Parliament? I would argue that a Member cannot be entirely selfless, unless they renounce any form of payment, unless they travel to London every single day from their constituency, wherever it is in the land, and unless they eschew any ambition whatsoever. But if they have no ambition, would they want to come to Parliament in the first place?

We have written descriptions to help explain not only to us but to our constituents and to members of the public, who might be the people complaining about our behaviour, precisely how those principles apply to how we do our business. Put simply, I think the Standards Committee’s version is more helpful to MPs and the public than the Government’s version.

Secondly, I think ministerial declarations are a no-brainer. I understand the arguments, but I do not think they particularly wash with the public. I start from three basic principles. First, Ministers in the House of Commons owe their position to their membership of the House, and they are answerable to the House. Secondly, all MPs should be treated equally under the rules. And thirdly, the public have a right to know, as close to real time as possible, of any financial interests that might reasonably be thought to influence an MP’s speeches, actions, decisions or votes. As Ministers actually make decisions, whereas most of us in the Chamber just talk about other people’s decisions, transparency is even more important for them, not less important.

Following those principles, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West said, the 1993 Select Committee on Members’ Interests—at around the time of cash for questions—concluded that

“Ministers are and should be subject to the House’s rules for the registration of financial interests in exactly the same way and to the same extent as all other Members of the House.”

That was the House rule under the Major Government. On the back of that, the new ministerial code in 1997, under Major and then under Blair, said that Ministers should register hospitality received in their capacity as a Minister in the House if it was

“on a scale or from a source which might reasonably be thought likely to influence Ministerial action.”

The 2007 ministerial code provided that ministers should register hospitality both with their permanent secretary and the House.

It was only in 2015—really quite late in the day—without any announcement, discussion or debate in the House, or any comment in a Select Committee report, that the rule was changed to grant Ministers in the code of conduct of this House an exemption from registering anything that they considered they had received in a ministerial capacity. The theory is, as the Leader of the House helpfully explained, that in exchange for that exemption, Ministers register through their Department any gifts, hospitality and travel that they have received in their ministerial capacity. That is published somewhere between three and nine months later, but without the value, which is a key point. That means that a member of the public cannot judge whether the hospitality was on a scale that might reasonably be thought likely to influence ministerial decisions.

The Committee, Transparency International, the Institute for Government, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, the 1922 committee, the Labour Front Bench, the Scottish National party Front Bench, a substantial number of Ministers and I think that the system is manifestly unfair for the ordinary Back-Bench MP. They declare it all within 28 days and can be investigated and sanctioned if they fail to declare it correctly. However, the Minister’s declaration, without details, appears months later and cannot be investigated. It is not uncommon for a group of MPs—some of whom are Ministers and some are not—to go to the same event, which might cost more than £300. The Back-Bench MPs all declare it and the Daily Mail writes a story about it, but the Minister’s attendance is recorded nine months later and nobody notices. That seems somewhat unfair to me.

Incidentally, in answer to a point that the Leader of the House made, the Committee has said that the Government could set a lower threshold for further ministerial registrations if they wanted to—lower than £300 threshold in the House of Commons. However, it is worth pointing out that, though the ministerial threshold at the moment is said to be £140, since the Government do not publish the value of what is received, we have no idea whether that threshold is being met. I have been to events with Ministers that I have registered, but which the Minister has never subsequently registered anywhere.

I am not convinced that the system is working. I have a great deal of time for the Leader of the House. I love ministerial promises, especially when they come before Christmas and they talk about spring, but previous Leaders of the House have said to me that this would be sorted out by spring—a different spring. That spring has now sprung, and now we are into the winter. It seems extraordinary that Government Ministers will not be able to work out for themselves—not the Department —whether they have been to an event or received hospitality worth more than £300, and to register it in two minutes by sending a quick email to the registrar of interests in the House. I simply do not understand the logistical argument from the Leader of the House.

I urge colleagues to support my amendment, first, because the public expect full transparency and openness, and wonder what Ministers are trying to hide. Secondly, Ministers, in effect, now choose whether to register with the House or the Department. That does not make any sense at all. Thirdly, even if the Leader gets her way, the information will not all be in one place.

Fourthly, nobody presently or in future, so far as I can see, is expected to regulate or monitor the ministerial declarations. Fifthly, there are bizarre anomalies such as the previous Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), and the previous Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), going to a Bond premiere, supposedly in their ministerial capacity because, as another Minister explained, James Bond exercises Executive functions. That argument simply undermines the whole system. I am not making that up, incidentally.

My next point is that this is the bare minimum that the public expect of us. I have had many emails, texts and helpful pieces of advice on Twitter saying that we should not be taking any hospitality or gifts whatsoever. If a person was working in local government or in most of the private sector today, they would have to declare everything. I do worry that sometimes our belief in our own exceptionalism, and Ministers’ belief in their own exceptionalism, grows with every extra day that we are an MP or a Minister.

Ministers have a habit of becoming ex-Ministers, but under the present rules, their registered interests do not come with them to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. So if we stick with the Government’s proposals, they could easily and inadvertently fall foul of the new paid lobbying rules, which now apply for 12 months after the interest is accrued. They might have accrued the interest when a Minister, but then end up not being a Minister any more and wanting to lobby Ministers. They would be precluded from doing that, but then they would not have registered the interest with the House. That is yet another reason why it is simpler—far, far simpler—to return to the system that we had from 1997 to 2015, instituted by both Conservative and Labour Governments on the back of the cash for questions crisis, of treating all MPs equally.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I am very near the end, the hon. Gentleman will be glad to know, but of course I will give way.

[Tim Loughton]

I have been listening very carefully, but I am undecided on this subject. When I was a Minister, the difference was that I had a permanent secretary who was on my case to make any declarations that I needed to make on outside interests, shareholdings and so on. An ordinary Back Bencher does not have that. A Back Bencher may take hospitality because it is quite a fun thing to do, but a Minister may have to attend something that could be seen as hospitality but is actually part of their brief. He or she might not enjoy having to do that, but that comes along with the job. The hon. Gentleman is trying to group everything together as if it were the same, but, actually, receiving hospitality is different case for a Minister and a Back Bencher.

[Chris Bryant]

I have heard the argument, “Oh, we go to lots of events that we don’t really enjoy”, but let me put this case to the hon. Member—it is not a real case, but it is a perfectly possible case. Let us say that Formula 1 invited three MPs: the shadow Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Minister; the Minister; and the Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. The event was at the weekend and the value of the hospitality was about £2,000. The shadow Minister would have to declare it. They might not particularly like Formula 1— They might be going because it is part of their work in that role. I personally cannot imagine anything worse than going to a Formula 1 event—[Interruption.] I can see that the hon. Gentleman agrees.

The Chair of the Select Committee would also have to register the Formula 1 weekend. They would have to register who had paid for it and how much it was worth, which is an important part of judging whether it might be of such a scale that it could influence a person’s decision making. Furthermore, those two people would not then subsequently be able to lobby on behalf of Formula 1. That is a really important part of the rules of the House. However, the Minister merely tells the permanent secretary that they have been on this weekend and does not register the value, and it appears many months later, even though the Minister might be the person who is making executive decisions that affect Formula 1. That is our fundamental problem.

What we have at the moment is a lesser degree of transparency and openness for Ministers who make decisions than for Back Benchers who do not make decisions. The Leader of the House has been very helpful on many of these issues and I do not have a big beef with her, although she is still yet to visit the Rhondda tunnel, but if I am honest, her arguments sounded a bit like Augustine of Hippo saying, “Make me chaste and continent, but not yet.”

There is no reason why we cannot do this. I have heard Ministers promise many things over the years—indeed, I might have promised a couple of things that never came to pass myself when I was a Minister. The easiest way for the House and for Parliament to deal with this is to go back now to the system that we used to have, then if the Government come back to us in six months’ time having sorted out ministerial transparency, they can have the exemption back. All MPs should be treated equally under the rules, just as every member of our society should be treated equally under the law, and that is why I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to support the two amendments I have tabled.

Privilege

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Nicolson]

I know that the Speaker has been on the receiving end of often unpleasant comments from the public since I revealed his decision. That was never my intention. I did not use his name, I did not link to him and I did not post contacts for him. I am very sorry that a pile-on has ensued. I have friends across the House, and I believe in vigorous but fair debate. I have no time for abusive behaviour; I do not engage in it and I deplore it.

I am advised that I breached a parliamentary rule by referring to the Speaker’s letter, but as I have explained, I did not knowingly do so. I would never reveal a confidence. I did not believe that the Speaker’s decision on a parliamentary matter was a secret. Indeed—this is perhaps not a matter for today—should there not be a distinction between correspondence containing confidences and correspondence on policy decisions? Has every Member who has revealed a Speaker’s decision by letter found themselves the subject of a parliamentary privilege debate, as I am today? Although this convention appears to exist, is it not the very antithesis of open democracy? Many Members on both sides of the House have told me privately that they did not know this rule existed.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I should declare an interest as another Member who appeared in the very same reality show that the hon. Gentleman’s Committee discussed. He has not apologised to the Speaker. Does he not think that, having betrayed what was marked as private correspondence, which clearly and rightly aggrieved the Speaker, if he had given an apology at the time when it was raised by the Chair last week, he would not be in this position now? Why did he not do that? Would he not like to bring back at least some decorum by apologising profusely to the Speaker and the House now for the offence he has caused?

[John Nicolson]

The hon. Gentleman says the letter was marked “private”. I do not know how he knows what was on the letter. I have shown the letter to absolutely nobody. But since he challenges me, the letter was not marked “private”. If it had been, I would not have talked about it. It is a core belief of people in my former profession that we hold confidences and that we will go to prison rather than reveal our sources. The letter was not marked “private”. It was about a matter of policy on whether or not a debate could be held, and I did not think that it was confidential.

Business of the House

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his helpful guidance on Backbench Business Committee admin, which I am sure all Members will have heard. May I say how sorry I am to hear about the case that he raised? He will know that I recently met the permanent secretary at the Home Office, in addition to having raised Members’ concerns with the Home Secretary, and if he gives us the details of the case, we will, immediately after the business question, facilitate a surgery for him with the Home Office to ensure that the case is brought to a good conclusion.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The Home Affairs Committee was hoping to visit Manston today, but the man from the Home Office, he say no. Hopefully we can go next week. As the Leader of the House has heard, most of the questions she has been asked so far have been about the migration system. The Home Secretary herself referred to it as dysfunctional. We have had occasional chances to ask questions of the Home Secretary and the Immigration Minister, but is it not time for a full debate in Government time on the shambles that is the immigration system, which needs to take a holistic approach? We need a proper discussion on how we will tackle this urgent situation, which is filling up our email boxes and is the headline in all the media virtually every day at the moment.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue, various aspects of which are obviously of concern to all Members of this House. The Government have a good track record of trying to get ahead of these issues. I refer him to the work done swiftly after 2010, under the Cameron Administration, on conflict states, and the use made of expert advice from Professor Paul Collier. Clearly, we will also face challenges two years hence as a result of what is happening on global food security at the moment. These issues need to be debated. I will certainly raise the matter with the Cabinet Office, as well as the Home Office, and I encourage my hon. Friend to use the routes available to him to secure a debate on this very important topic.

Business of the House

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

One looks forward to the hon. Gentleman’s parties, which I am sure would be enormous fun. When he is there with his rock and roll band, I think the furious persona that is presented to us at business questions every week slides away, and suddenly the true Mr Wishart appears as the kindly, benevolent and jovial fellow that he is. I must say that the mask he wears so well in this House—in both senses—sometimes covers that up, but I am sure that, privately, his parties would be a joy to behold.

The hon. Gentleman asks me for a debate. Well, ask and it shall be given. As I have said, the Scottish National party has an Opposition day debate on Monday and he will be free to put down any orderly motion for that day. If the motion is the one that he wants, that will be the motion that we will debate. If he wishes to succeed in uniting the Conservative party even more on Monday, I look forward to the motion that he will put down.

As regards big dogs, they are absolutely splendid. I got a dog for my daughter a couple of years ago. I was quite keen on having an Irish wolfhound, because they are fine and impressive animals, but we ended up with a cocker spaniel, which is an absolute delight. I am sure that we could debate in this House on many occasions the varied virtues of all sorts of hounds—the bloodhounds that people admire and like so much. [Interruption.] Or Dalmatians, Yorkshire terriers or any of the range of dogs that could be considered and that bring joy to so many of sour constituents. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is most concerned that pet theft be made illegal, with which I am confident the Government will deal in due course.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I declare my entry in the register as the chair of a safeguarding board. The Leader of the House and all hon. Members will remember the tragic cases of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, the six-year-old and 16-month-old children who were killed at the hands of their parents and carers before Christmas. We had a statement from the Secretary of State for Education on 6 December. Can we have Government time for a debate on the safeguarding of children, which we have not had in this House for some time, to coincide with the report from the national review that the Secretary of State ordered? We will shortly have the serious case review of the Star case and many constituents will be concerned to know what further measures we can take to protect such vulnerable children.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am genuinely grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the issue of those tragic cases that have upset the nation at large and that require great work to be done to protect children in future. The cruelty, abuse and pain that those children suffered is unimaginable. It is important that policies are brought forward and adopted to protect children. Obviously, during lockdown, the supervision of children who were thought to be at risk was not what it ought to be and what it usually is when the country is fully at work. That is something that needs to be looked at. We need to be aware of what went wrong, so that we can ensure that those sorts of things do not go wrong in the future.

I cannot promise a specific debate in Government time on this matter, but I encourage my hon. Friend to keep on on the subject and to seek the guidance of the Backbench Business Committee, because it is a subject that many in this House would like to discuss.

Business of the House

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman is ever happy, so there is no pleasing some people. However, I would point out that over £600 million extra is going to the Welsh Government’s budget—the biggest day- to-day funding settlement for the Welsh Government in a decade—and there will also be the concomitant Barnett consequentials from yesterday’s Budget statement. So it is simply not accurate to say that Wales is not receiving extra funding.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the register. There were some very welcome moves on coronavirus in the Budget yesterday, and some very practical advice from the NHS. I understand the need to keep schools open if the risk is low to children, so as to keep workers in important work positions, but the same applies to nursery schools and other forms of childcare, which do not appear to have been covered in the Budget yesterday, or in advice. I have had a letter from a constituent with a nursery today saying that

“Morton Michel, one of the biggest childcare insurers in the UK”

is

“refusing to add Covid-19 to its list of insurable diseases”,

which could result in many childcare places going bust. Could we have guidance, and a statement from the Treasury and from the Department for Education, specifically for childcare providers, and also for children in care?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend raises a significant subject. I will take it up and get a reply to him as to what action the Government are taking on the matter.

Business of the House

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady raises a matter that is no doubt of concern to many MPs when these charges come through. There are Home Office questions on Monday 10 February, and I would encourage her to raise it at that point. There has to be a balance and a fairness between the charges that are made to fund the immigration system and ensuring that people who have a right to remain—an indefinite right to remain—are not unfairly charged.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Is it not about time that we had a debate on the Church of England and sex? No sooner had my Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019 become effective, and many happy couples have got hitched since new year’s eve, than the Church of England issued an edict to say that it does not approve of sex within civil partnerships—same-sex or opposite-sex. Not only is that wholly unrealistic, but it is deeply offensive in relation to the status of children born to civil partners. I know my right hon. Friend takes his inspiration from the Church of Rome, rather than from the established Church, but does he not agree, dispassionately, that the Church of England has lost the plot?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I never criticise the Church of England as I am not a member of it. In the Catholic Church these subjects are not a matter for debate—we merely get told by the hierarchy, which does simplify matters to some extent. Given that my hon. Friend wants to ask questions, there are questions to the Church Commissioners next week, and I am sure that the person who responds will be delighted to hear them.

Business of the House

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 26th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to refer to Bills by colloquial names. It is a traditional and perfectly reasonable thing to do. Of course, it is a political matter. People will use the names they use. The forms on language in this House are well set out. As you said earlier, Mr Speaker, nothing disorderly happened yesterday. We have to be really careful. Civility and being polite to each other are important, and when Members on either side are vilified or threats to their safety are made, we must oppose it vigorously, but that is of a very different order of magnitude from robust debate in this House. To conflate the two is a fundamental error and risks making the serious nature of what is happening to some Members appear part of the back and forth of politics. It is not—it is really serious. The term “surrender Bill” is a matter of taste, not a matter of any real importance. I am quite happy with the term “surrender Bill”.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am sorry I am not a doctor, Mr Speaker, but I am at least a patient—and patient. The Leader of the House mentioned many SIs, but not the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019, which received Royal Assent in May and which requires an SI by the beginning of December in order for opposite-sex couples to enter into a civil partnership by 31 December. Many bookings have provisionally been made. Can he update the House and guarantee that that SI will go through in good time, because many happy couples are expecting it?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend—

[Tim Loughton]

I’m not right honourable.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

He can’t not be. A gentleman of his seniority! I do apologise. Anyway, he makes an important point. I will take it up with the relevant Secretary of State to see when that statutory instrument is planned.