Business of the House

Debate between Tom Brake and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The Leader of the House wants a general election on 12 December. Can he explain to the House what the purpose of the Queen’s Speech was?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The purpose of the Queen’s Speech—the Gracious Speech—was to set out the legislative programme, and what a triumph it has been already. The Queen’s Speech has been adopted by this House with a comfortable majority and a flagship piece of legislation has already passed its Second Reading. Who would have thought that we could have succeeded so much in so short a time? It is hard to think of a greater political success in modern history.

Business of the House

Debate between Tom Brake and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend asks, “Is it a bit rich?” It is as rich as Jersey cream.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

On 3 September, the Leader of the House suggested that Opposition MPs were risking subverting Parliament’s scrutiny role. Exactly how many minutes of scrutiny will we be getting for each page of this Bill?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We have had three years, so the right hon. Gentleman can do the calculation. Three times 365 times 24 will give him the answer.

Business Statement

Debate between Tom Brake and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

If the right hon. Gentleman had not set a foolish date in his surrender Act, there would not be this problem.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The Leader of the House will no doubt be aware that on Saturday there will probably be a million-plus people in London marching for a people’s vote. Will he arrange the sitting in such a way that Members of Parliament whose constituents may want to lobby them on the issue of a people’s vote can be made available for that purpose?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am not entirely sure about the counting ability of Liberal Democrats, but it is always a right of members of the public to lobby MPs when the House is sitting. It is one we should be very proud of.

Business of the House

Debate between Tom Brake and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He reminds me to pay tribute, too, to the retiring Serjeant at Arms, who is a very distinguished figure. He is also absolutely right to raise the matter that he does. Blind and severely visually impaired people clearly face significant challenges in living independent lives. Up until April 2011, the disability living allowance failed to reflect those challenges. The Government have put in place changes to rectify this, and I encourage him to seek an Adjournment debate, so that he can raise this particular concern directly with the appropriate Minister, but I will also pass on his concern after today’s proceedings.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I really welcome the Leader of the House to his position, because the Liberal Democrats could not want for a better recruiting sergeant than him as we set up a contest between Victorian values and Liberal Democrat values. More seriously, will the Leader of the House make time available for the House to discuss his views on Northern Ireland and the checks on the Irish border—as we had during the troubles—how the Government can keep an eye on the border and be able to have people inspected and the impact that that would have on the Good Friday agreement?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I may be a better recruiting sergeant for the Liberal Democrats than the right hon. Gentleman, but I fear that that may not be a very difficult task. With regard to Northern Ireland and the border with the Republic of Ireland, the Prime Minister has made it clear that there will not be a border imposed by the British Government. The right hon. Gentleman is another fortunate man as there will be Northern Ireland questions on 11 September, and he can raise these matters directly with the relevant Minister.

Business of the House

Debate between Tom Brake and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I will not give way again, because others wish to speak—apologies. The motion is discourteous to you, Mr Speaker, limits time for debate and is fundamentally against the constitution.

[Tom Brake]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) would like to correct the record, because it is clear from the tweet from the AfD that he retweeted that he was endorsing the statement that had been made by that member of a far-right party in the German Parliament.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Tom Brake and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Committee: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

Perhaps I could suggest a handicap system for Members who observe the advisory time limit on speeches.

If the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) thinks that the European Union is keen to drag things out, he has clearly not spoken to many EU diplomats. They want this to be over; they are not as obsessed with Brexit as he might be.

I commend the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) for his rational discourse in relation to amendment 7. Unlike me, he cannot be described as wanting to stop Brexit. He does not want to, but I do—democratically, with a vote on the deal. That is covered by amendment 120, which we will vote on next Wednesday. But he and I are certainly in the same place when it comes to the importance of parliamentary sovereignty, and legislative rigour and accuracy. He set out cogent arguments in favour of amendment 7, and he described the extent to which he has bent over backwards in the last few weeks to try to secure agreement from the Government on a way forward, but failed to do so.

The Minister’s main argument against amendment 7 was time pressure. The Government have, to a great extent, inflicted that problem on themselves, whether through the general election that they called, by triggering article 50 when they did, or by refusing to entertain the option of extending the article 50 process. The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said that EU had not offered such an extension but, as I understand it, the UK has at no point ever asked for one. The right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield set out a very neat solution to the problem that the Government outlined, and the Minister did not manage to convince the very experienced senior Members who were sitting behind him. He might not have seen it, but the body language and facial expressions of those behind him reinforced the point that, frankly, the Government have not deployed very cogent arguments in favour of opposing amendment 7. I look forward to voting on that amendment, and to Parliament taking back control.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I will not be voting for article 7, because I think it is a mistake—[Interruption.] I am extremely grateful; I mean amendment 7. The amendment calls for legislation to be put in afterwards, which is a very unusual thing for a Bill to do—I believe it is unprecedented. If people do not like clause 9, they should vote against it, rather than voting for this unusual amendment.

I want to make it clear, however, that I very much accept the good faith of those who argue for amendment 7. Those of us who opposed the Government when they were very pro-European should not criticise Members such as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve)—Disraeli pronounced the constituency name slightly differently—when they decide to take the reverse position of the one we took in previous years. What they are doing is completely reasonable.

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

Debate between Tom Brake and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My amendment would not prohibit them from campaigning; it would merely mean that they could not be registered third parties. They would still be able to campaign.

[Tom Brake]

The fact remains that, from a Government perspective, we do not want to be in a position where organisations currently assisting the Government are not able to campaign in election campaigns.

Amendment 66 would amend clause 27 so that it no longer lowers the expenditure threshold that third parties may exceed only after they register with the Electoral Commission. Clause 27 proposes that those registration thresholds be set at £5,000 in England and £2,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Government are seeking to do that because we believe in greater transparency. We believe it is important that people understand who is campaigning in the course of election campaigns. It has been said, possibly by the Chair of the Select Committee, that that will have a huge impact on a very large number of charities. The Government’s assessment of how many extra charities will be included as a result of dropping the threshold is 30—just 30 charities would be affected. I accept that potentially 30 charities may be affected, but in practice the overwhelming majority of charities will not be affected.

Defamation Bill

Debate between Tom Brake and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I thought I might throw a few pebbles into the pond of consensus that there has been so far. We have had near enough five hours of consensus. It is now time to hear a little from the other side.

First, as a general principle, when all parties agree on something, it is usually a mistake. We have found that historically. The cut and thrust of debate, with one side saying one thing and the other putting forward the alternative view, is enormously powerful in getting to the right answer. I am rather suspicious when we have a lawyerly committee that comes together. I am so pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler), to break into the lawyerly cabal and give the view from the layman. So first, I have a suspicion of consensus in principle.

Secondly, as my doubts were beginning to grow, at the end of his fine speech, the Lord Chancellor said that this was a “sound piece of modernising” legislation. It seems to me that the words “sound” and “modernising” never go together. If something is modernising, one ought to be suspicious of it. We had modernising from 1997 to 2010 and it almost bankrupted the nation. Therefore, “sound” and “modernising” are not compatible.

I think back, of course, to the coalition agreement. It is a great pleasure and a daily joy for all of us to be in coalition with our Lib Dem friends, allies, compatriots.

[Tom Brake]

The feeling is mutual.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am so pleased to hear that it is mutual. I say that for the benefit of the Hansard Reporters in case they did not catch it, although they have such sharp ears that I am sure they did.

The Bill is something that the Lib Dems asked for in the coalition agreement. It is a major piece of legislation, which we are pushing through at the very earliest stage of the second Session of Parliament. We should remind the Lib Dems that this is their legislation. When they come back and ask for more legislation later in the Session, perhaps to do with constitutional reform, we can remind them that they have had their fair share and that we have been relatively sotto voce about our concerns over this Bill, so they cannot expect to have any more.

[Tom Brake]

Does my hon. Friend agree, however, that this Bill is very short, and that it therefore should not constitute our entire contribution to the coalition’s programme?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I have been listening for the last five hours to how amazingly important the Bill is and to the view that it is short but perfectly formed. It seems to me, therefore, that the power of the Bill and the effect it will have should not be underestimated when we look at the scales of coalition balance. At the moment, they are weighing down heavily on the Lib Dem side and I think that we might need a little counterweight for the Conservatives later in the Session.

I want to consider the merits of the Bill and the whole idea of what we are trying to achieve. We have heard from other Members about freedom of speech, which is something of the utmost importance—the cliché of the evening, but it is a true cliché. Freedom of speech is under attack from the Leveson inquiry, which wishes to bind down journalists to rules of good behaviour, and sometimes from libel lawyers.

However, we should also consider the question of reputation, defamation and how we should protect people when they feel they have been hard done by. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) quoted Shakespeare. Two can play at that game, so I though I would too:

“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls.

Who steals my purse steals trash—”

in my case butterflies and moths, and things like that—

“‘tis something, nothing;

‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.”

So it is right that there is some protection in our legal system for people’s good name, even though that impinges on freedom of speech.

There are already many protections in the law for freedom of speech. We are fortunate to enjoy under the Bill of Rights an absolute privilege for anything that we say in this Chamber. It can never be used in any court of law. We can be as rude about people as we like—not that I am going to use that privilege this evening, but it is a privilege of absolute free speech.

It is to be welcomed that the Bill maintains that truth should be a defence in a defamation action. That seems perfectly sensible and wise, although I know Pontius Pilate questioned what truth was, and there is always that issue to consider. Truth is not necessarily as absolute as it can sometimes be thought to be off the cuff, so to speak. There are elements and forms of truth, and of course in the oath that people take in courts there is “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”, indicating different levels of truth.

Fair comment, which has been allowed in the past, is now being made clearly part of the law, which is absolutely splendid. If people wish to air their disagreements and phrase themselves strongly, that is all to the good and to be encouraged, and it should be protected as part of free speech. However, what if the defamation is serious? What penalties should there be then? Who should decide, and who should be charged?

I am concerned about the liberties that we are giving to internet service providers and to people who are responsible for websites but deny any responsibility for their content. They become more and more powerful as time goes on. There are two or three firms that dominate the world in that sense, but they are not necessarily on the side of the individual who is defamed.

I had my own little issue with somebody who set up a highly amusing Twitter account in my name. It was not done by me—it was much funnier than I could ever have been—but there was nothing that I could do to stop it. It went on churning out comments that some journalists thought I had made. I always thought I could say my own silly things without anybody saying them on my behalf. There needs to be some recourse for people who are impersonated and defamed through that impersonation. The responsibility ought to lie with the internet companies, which ought not to have a great exemption that allows them to tarnish people’s reputations without any great difficulty.

I have some specific concerns about the Bill and the argument that has been developed today. The first is about jury trials. We heard from the Lord Chancellor and others very good arguments for getting rid of juries—that they are expensive, that they are inconvenient, that they make the process more difficult for m’learned friends. However, that requires that we should have absolute faith in the wisdom of judges, and personally I do not. They are broadly good and wise eggs and do their best under difficult circumstances, but they are not omniscient. I feel that if my reputation were on the line, it would be safer in the hands of 12 good and true men and women of this country—ideally, of course, of Somerset. That would be the best way to protect one’s reputation. I accept that it is expensive, but it is more just.

That is particularly important in any libel case that has a political tint about it, because judges are part of the establishment. They are there, in some ways, to uphold the establishment, and we see from some of what they come up with when commissioned by the Government to write learned reports that they often fall on the side of the establishment. Lord Hutton was the supreme example of that a few years ago when he produced a most extraordinary whitewash of all that had gone on over the Iraq affair. I therefore do not believe it is right or wise to use the argument of convenience, which could be used to abolish juries in every trial in the land for all time.

London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]

Debate between Tom Brake and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 21st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, as always, and it is one of those occasions when one needs balance: one needs the Lib-Dem approach to it—neither one thing nor the other, but something in between. One needs to have sufficient respectability of the person so that people know that it is an officer with some authority, but equally one needs to be in a position where the officer does not let that authority go to their head by being so overburdened with gold braid and pride that they feel they are enormously powerful and must intervene. I should not give them one of those spiked helmets that one sees in old first world war films with the Prussian officers marching out; that might give the wrong impression. I suggested earlier that a bowler hat might be suitable, and that may be the right way.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is no link between the level of self-importance that someone feels and whether they have a uniform or not?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Some people may have been thinking from my speech that, despite not being in a uniform, I have an undue level of self-importance, so my hon. Friend’s point is probably one that Members, as much as others, should bear in mind.

If we develop the uniform theme and decide that it gives such officials too much power, we might decide that they should just have the badge of Westminster on their ordinary clothes, so that at least one would knew who they were. I thought that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, would be dying to know what the badge is:

“A Portcullis chained and ensigned of a Mural Crown between on the dexter side a united Rose and on the sinister side a Lily”—

once again stalked, but—

“both stalked and leaved all Or,”

which is exactly the ticket for issuing tickets, so to speak.

London Local Authorities Bill [Lords] (By Order)

Debate between Tom Brake and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

The Bill is deeply disagreeable and it is remarkable that the House of Commons should spend so much time considering something that would take freedoms from law-abiding people in London, particularly in the City of Westminster.

What is the purpose of the Bill’s opening part? It is to give to borough officials powers that are normally reserved for policemen. One might go out of this House and some person employed by Westminster city council, with or without a peaked cap, might come up and say that he does not like what one is doing because one is selling a car over the internet or doing some other desperately evil activity. That employee will then levy a fine and will levy a second fine if the person does not tell him their name and address. I thought it was no right of anybody’s to demand the names and addresses of people going about their lawful business, but, under the Bill, someone who refuses to give it to some official from Westminster city council will commit an offence. I do not want to tell officials from Westminster city council my address—they could look it up on the electoral register, which would not take them very long. That is an initial intrusion on freedoms that we ought to value and that ought to be at the forefront of what the House does.

Having dealt with clauses 4 and 5, let me address clause 8, which is one of the meanest-minded measures we have seen recently. A few years ago, Westminster city council was all for a café culture: “Let’s have people putting chairs out on the pavement and have people drinking in the street”, it said. “Let’s have them pretending they are in Venice or Florence; in spite of the weather, they can think that the sun is shining because they are out on the street.” Now, having persuaded a few restaurants and cafés to put out some tables and chairs, the self-same council wants to say, “You’ve done what we asked and we are very pleased with this charming and delightful café culture”—otherwise known as binge drinking—“and because of that we want to charge you for it.” Does that seem a reasonable way for a council to behave, and is it proper for us as a Parliament to give it a special bit of law to make itself obnoxious to a free people?

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) has gone through the hygiene aspects, but I thought I was elected on a platform of deregulation. The Labour Government, for all their virtues, were great ones for regulating and for insisting that everything should be signed, sealed and delivered. Even in a church, there has to be a sign saying that people are not allowed to smoke to deter all those who used to go into a church just to roll a cigarette, light up and smoke away.

There are signs everywhere and the mass of bureaucracy is upon us. Now, the Conservative Government want to ensure that when someone wanders into a café for a small cup of coffee, tea or whatever his preference happens to be, there must be a sign saying the café is hygienic. Otherwise, he might be poisoned by whatever desperate thing it is that the café puts in its tea. Is this necessary? Is it proportionate? Is it a sensible use of the money of business to spend it on putting up signs when people who go into restaurants know that there are forms of regulation and whether the food is any good. If they do not like it, they can have an argument with the restaurateur, say that they are not paying and tell all their friends not to go there. The free market copes here much more adequately than increased regulation.

I am glad to say that the Minister is against all the stuff on housing. Those proposals concern me because they are broadly an attack on private property, which is one of the mainstays of our constitutional settlement. The rights of private property are that which underpins a free society—the right for people to own their own home or to let it out to somebody else—as opposed to what is in clause 21, whereby the self-same peaked-capped man who was fining me for refusing to tell him my name and address then barges into somebody’s house just to check that they are complying with regulations.

As I understood it, the aim of Her Majesty’s Government was to ensure that the right to enter houses applied only when a warrant had been issued—a warrant duly signed by a magistrate—so as to protect us from aggressive officialdom. On the one hand, there will be warrants; on the other, officials from particular and peculiar councils will barge in on people in their homes or in houses that have been let out, telling them what they may or may not do.

I shall finish by referring to the trading of cars on the internet. The absurdity here is palpable. Why can I not put a little sticker in my car, offering to sell it? If somebody wanders past and says, “That’s worth £100,” and I accept it, surely that is commerce at its most basic and simple level. Surely it is what gets people into the culture of trading and activity, and leads to the prosperity of a capitalist society.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It would be an honour.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he make a distinction between a single vehicle being sold on a street and seven, eight or 10 vehicles being sold, which often happens on Bishopsford road in my constituency?