Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

2. If he will make it his policy that topical questions be asked in the House to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

While the status of oral questions is, of course, kept under review, there are no current plans to change the policy so that topical questions may be asked of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

[Mr Robertson]

I thank the Minister for his response. He will be aware that there are occasions, particularly in Northern Ireland, when urgent matters need to be discussed and that that has sometimes proved problematic. I ask him to reconsider the possibility of perhaps allowing 10 minutes to be given over to topical questions in each session.

[Tom Brake]

I guess that one of the issues with topical questions for Northern Ireland is that matters are often more complex because of devolution. Mr Speaker has rightly been generous in allowing urgent questions, which provide another route for consideration of urgent matters in Northern Ireland.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I very much support the proposition put forward by the Chairman of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. The Democratic Unionists very much support the introduction of topical questions and urgent questions for Northern Ireland matters. I do not accept the argument about complexity: every Department has complex issues to deal with and Northern Ireland issues are no more complex. I thus urge the House authorities and the Government to consider this very carefully.

[Tom Brake]

I am afraid that I am not in a position to change my earlier response. Urgent questions provide a route to raise urgent matters. The complexities of devolution are a fact, which makes it more difficult for Members to ensure that their question is pertinent to topical questions and is one to which Ministers can respond.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I support calls for topical questions for Northern Ireland but also a review of topical questions in general and, in particular—despite the great skills of Mr Speaker—the almost impossibility of fitting in all the topical questions to the Deputy Prime Minister.

[Tom Brake]

My hon. Friend will be aware that the time set aside for topical questions to the Deputy Prime Minister was extended owing to demand. The issue is that we have a limited amount of time in this House available for questions and extending questions in one area inevitably means cutting them in another.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of September sittings of the House.

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

The House performs its functions effectively in September just as it does in other months of the year.

[Kevin Brennan]

Before anyone gets too excited, may I just make it clear that I am not suggesting that we have fewer sitting days? September sittings were introduced early in the 2000s but ignore the facts of the party conference season, which was originally at the end of September and into October because of the availability of cheap rooms in seaside resorts. That is no longer an issue for parties. Have there been any discussions about bringing party conferences forward in September so that we can avoid this very expensive two-week period when the House is brought back to life?

[Tom Brake]

The Deputy Leader of the House is responsible for a limited number of things and party conferences is certainly not one of them. Members would agree that the September sittings that we have just had were essential. We debated some essential matters and there might well have had to be a recall of Parliament had we not had those sittings. I was pleased to note that on Friday 5 September there was the largest turnout of Labour MPs ever—subject to my being corrected by the Labour Whips—on a private Member’s Bill. I was pleased to note that the hon. Gentleman’s name followed mine in the list in Hansard of those who voted.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

Has the institution of September sittings made any difference at all to the total number of days per year on which the House sits? What does my right hon. Friend calculate the cost to be in terms of the interruption of maintenance works and the inconvenience to all people on the Parliamentary Estate when certain facilities are not available at that time?

[Tom Brake]

The number of days has not changed as a result of September sittings. Were we to abolish them, if that is something for which Members are pressing, we would simply have to make that time available elsewhere. The additional costs are marginal; I understand them to be of the order of £200,000 for that period.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Whatever the arrangements are for possibly changing the times of conferences, is the Deputy Leader of the House aware that it would be totally unacceptable to return to a situation where the House did not meet for nine or 10 consecutive weeks? In the past many of us urged that that should be discontinued and I am pleased that it has been.

[Tom Brake]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman and I often see eye to eye on matters in this House but on that point I am in total agreement with him. The public and indeed Members of Parliament would consider it strange that for a very extended period during the summer we are not sitting and there were not opportunities to raise important matters in this place.

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

Is not the real problem that the two Houses are now completely out of sync with each other, with the House of Lords sitting until the end of July and not now coming back until mid-October? Will the Leader and Deputy Leader of the House speak to their counterparts about trying to realign the two Houses, thus not only saving money but improving parliamentary scrutiny?

[Tom Brake]

That is a valid point and I am certainly happy to follow it up. Often the Houses are not synchronised in terms of the progress of Bills in any case, but the hon. Gentleman has raised an important point. It is certainly worth seeing whether the timetables could be synchronised if that had a significant impact in reducing the costs of running Parliament.

The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, representing the House of Commons Commission, was asked—

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[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

9. What plans he has to improve the system of e-petitions.

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

Following a resolution of the House on 8 May, my office has been working with the Procedure Committee on a collaborative e-petition system. Details of what the new system will look like and how it will operate are still being discussed and developed. However, I can assure Members that before the end of this Parliament a set of proposals for a new e-petition system will be brought before the House for debate and decision.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. My constituent John Clough has sponsored a petition on the change.org website calling for a stalkers register that so far has attracted over 120,000 signatures. Could well-supported online petitions such as Mr Clough’s hosted on sites other than the official e-petition website play a role in influencing the debates here in Parliament?

[Tom Brake]

Clearly the petition of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent John Clough can indeed play a role in influencing Parliament, in that the hon. Gentleman has a number of opportunities to raise it, such as through Adjournment debates, and the Backbench Business Committee remains an option to raise petitions not just on the e-petition site, but any other site.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the Government are planning to change the threshold of 100,000 signatures in relation to e-petitions to ensure that they get more of an airing in the House of Commons?

[Tom Brake]

The Government intend to set up a petitions committee, whose purpose will be to allow a greater airing of petitions and to give advice to people seeking to table petitions. The committee will be able to consider petitions of any size, so the threshold will be completely flexible.



Royal assent

[Mr Speaker]

I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Measure:

Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure 2014.