Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wayne David and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

5. What recent discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on the resilience of infrastructure in Wales.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

10. What recent discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on the resilience of infrastructure in Wales.

Standing Orders (Public Business)

Debate between Wayne David and Chris Bryant

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House quoted Sir William Mckay. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the things in the Mckay report was that there should be absolutely no move whatsoever towards the creation of two classes of MPs, but that is precisely what this does?

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which is that the Mackay commission lays out various different routes that one could go down, but makes it absolutely clear that one of his fundamental principles was that there should not be two tiers of MPs.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Wayne David and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Wayne David]

We are talking about the monarch of the United Kingdom, not everybody else in the country. We have to acknowledge that we have a constitutional monarchy that is quite unique.

The origins of the current stipulation are in ancient common law, whereby the monarch has a duty and right of care relating to the upbringing of his or her close relatives. However, that was taken significantly further by the Royal Marriages Act 1772. Although that statute was promoted by George III’s antagonism towards the marriage of his two brothers to women whom he saw as unacceptable, it was drafted in such a way that it went much further than was necessary to respond to his immediate concerns. Indeed, the ramifications of that law mean that today literally hundreds of individuals are obliged to go through a formal legal process involving the monarch and the Privy Council to have their marriages approved. The Bill introduces a change so that any future prohibitions are of eligibility to the line of succession rather than of the marriage.

I do not question the proposed change, but I would nevertheless welcome clarification from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), of why royal consent is now to be required for the first six people in line to the throne. I heard the Deputy Prime Minister say that it is a pragmatic move, but there has to be some rationale behind it. The constitutional expert Vernon Bogdanor has suggested that the figure might be five, and others have suggested larger or smaller numbers. Perhaps the Minister could clarify why six has been the number chosen.

[Chris Bryant]

What does my hon. Friend think would happen to somebody who was No. 7 in line and then suddenly became No. 6?

[Wayne David]

That is an interesting hypothetical question, and I would certainly welcome the Minister’s response, as it is the Government who have put forward the figure of six.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Wayne David and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

It is a great delight to follow the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth); it is only a shame that he is speaking from the Back Benches. It was rather nice when he was speaking from the Front Bench. They culled the wrong Minister in the Ministry of Defence, I thought. It is good to follow him also because he is a church warden and he will know that church warden was one of the first posts that women could be elected to in this country, long before they could be elected as MPs.

The hon. Gentleman was absolutely right on one point, which is that, in a sense, clause 2 opens a wound, but stitches up only part of it. The wound is actually much bigger. The provisions in the Act of Settlement and the Bill of Rights on Catholicism—only a tiny bit of which we are amending—are not only offensive, but meant to be offensive. They were deliberately intended as offensive legislation, to try to slap Catholicism on the face and send it flying. I know that the Minister wants to restrict things as much as possible and make this a tidy little Bill; none the less, the truth is that at some point we will have to get rid of all these provisions.

[Wayne David]

I understand what my hon. Friend is saying, but does he accept that it is not valid to argue that because we cannot change everything we might not like, we can change nothing?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, and that is why I allowed Second Reading to go through, and I will—[Interruption.] Sorry, I meant that I added my assent to everybody else’s. I want clause 2 to remain in the Bill, but it points to the issue—to which hon. Members have referred—of the bringing up of children. Baptism was referred to earlier. At what point does one decide that somebody has been in communion with or reconciled to the See or the Church of Rome? Somebody suggested the point of baptism, but I do not think that that is categorical. As I tried to suggest earlier, baptism is not Catholic or Anglican—it is Christian. However, many children growing up in a Catholic family or being brought up by Catholic parents will be expected to take their first communion when they are quite young. I would have thought that, at that point, they were in communion with Rome.

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[Chris Bryant]

The Minister referred to the 1967 provisions. As I understand it, that was because some members of the Cabinet were unhappy at the idea of somebody in the line of succession to the throne marrying a divorcee. Obviously, that does not apply today, where the other person’s partner is still alive. This cannot be left to the discretion of the monarch and of Ministers. It must come to Parliament.

[Wayne David]

That is almost an extrapolation of what I was saying. If the decision is in the public domain, it becomes, in a sense, the property of Parliament and it is open to us to discuss the issue, if not to make a determination. I would welcome the Minister’s response to those points.

European Union Bill

Debate between Wayne David and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David]

I take my hon. Friend’s point about the comparison with the referendum in Wales on 3 March, but at the same time it could be said that that referendum is on an important constitutional issue—whether the Welsh Assembly is to have primary legislative powers. My concern is that the current Bill could lead us to have a multiplicity of referendums on very small, technical issues. A lot of public money might be spent on that basis.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend has essentially made my point for me again. As you are looking quizzical, Mr Hoyle, there is no need for me to detain the House longer. [Interruption.] No, it is quizzical, honestly. Well, it certainly is now, even if it was not a few seconds ago. I look forward to hearing the Minister explain why there is no provision in the Bill for a value-for-money test before there is a referendum.

European Union Bill

Debate between Wayne David and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Referendums in different countries operate in different ways. I think that I have heard the Minister say on a couple of occasions both here and elsewhere that there was never a referendum that supported the Lisbon treaty. That is completely untrue, as the Spaniards were the first to hold a referendum and it had an 83% or 84% yes vote, so he is wrong about that.

I think I have made my argument on Strasbourg.

[Mr David]

My hon. Friend is making a very important point. He has used the example of Strasbourg, but he is making a wider point. The process of change in the European Union, as anybody who knows anything at all about it will be aware, is based on negotiations. The point of the Bill is that it makes it impossible for future Governments in this country to negotiate in Britain’s national interest.

[Chris Bryant]

Absolutely. There are many different things in the European Union—many determined in treaty—that I want to change as a pro-European and as somebody who wants always to defend the British interest. I do not see those two things running counter to each other. My argument in essence is that the Government must have enough freedom to proceed in negotiations, so that they can gain concessions from the other side. If a country has already locked itself down, it is impossible to gain concessions from the other side.

European Union Bill

Debate between Wayne David and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The attitude of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) is rather different from that before the election, as is that of the Liberal Democrat party. That will not surprise many Conservative or Labour Members. The hon. Gentleman seemed to suggest that a vast army of people are constantly campaigning on Europe and our relationship with the European Union. In my time in this House, which is coming up to 10 years, I think that I have received four letters from my constituents about our relationship with the European Union. I have received quite a lot of letters from other people’s constituents, but remarkably few from my own. I agree completely with the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) about the failure in the way in which we scrutinise the mandate that Ministers think they are taking to meetings of the Council of Ministers and the legislation that comes from the European Union. I have made that point many times to the House.

[Mr David]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about scrutiny, but does he agree that it is reprehensible that we did not have a statement and a debate in the House before the last European Council, and possibly the one before that?

[Chris Bryant]

I do. It is unfortunate that the Leader of the House has adopted the approach of insisting that pre-Council debates have to be provided for by the Backbench Business Committee from its allocation. Those debates are about the Government’s mandate, and they should be in Government time. I hope that at some point the Leader of the House will change his position on that. We may well not need a full day’s debate—two and a half hours might be sufficient. Having participated in nearly every one of them since 2001, along with my hon. Friend and neighbour from the south Wales valleys, I can fairly safely predict who will take part in them. I can pretty much guess exactly what they will say, as quite a few of us have single transferrable speeches.

I wish to refer specifically to some of the amendments in this group, and my points will be made against the background of my belief that the whole of clause 6 is nonsense. It will harm the power of the British Government to negotiate on behalf of the British people and advance the British interest. It will make Parliament look like a body that is not genuinely interested in significant economic or trade advances. To Indian, Chinese, Russian, Brazilian and Mexican potential counterparts, we will look like the country that is standing in the way of the means of enhancing trade with their economies. I believe that that is a mistake.

The hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) tabled amendment 54 and referred to it earlier. As he knows, it would ensure that there could be no extension of the rights afforded to members of the EU by virtue of article 25 of the TFEU, which is related to article 20(2). I say to him that in the middle of the general election campaign earlier this year, as Europe Minister, I had to go to a meeting—I cannot remember whether it was in Brussels or Luxembourg—to agree to the paper on the founding of the European External Action Service that Baroness Ashton had brought forward as High Representative. Many member states were keen for the paper to contain specific provision for consular services, because as I said earlier, many of the smaller countries in the EU have no representation in many of the 190 or so countries in the world. They frequently use the consular services of other EU member states, and most of the larger member states, such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain and ourselves, are perfectly happy to extend the hand of friendship in that way. Sometimes it is paid for by the country concerned and sometimes it is not, but there is give and take between different member states, so we are perfectly happy for that arrangement to exist.

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[Chris Bryant]

I look forward to hearing the hon. Gentleman’s arguments.

My final point is that my anxiety about the drafting of this Bill, and in particular this clause and its attendant schedule, is that it is a lawyers’ paradise. There will be constant judicial review of decisions made by Ministers. For instance, in the case of the agreement on the External Action Service, the eventual format would have been agreed by a Minister from any political party in this House, but it could well be subject to judicial review under the amendment. It is also true of many other elements of the clause, and it means that Ministers’ actions at meetings in Europe will constantly be subject to judicial review. Rather than increasing the power of Parliament, that will actually increase the power of the judges in this country, which I consider to be a very big mistake.

[Mr David]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, but is he aware that the European Scrutiny Committee, when considering the issue of judicial review, concluded that the clause, which has been projected by the Government as an apparent safeguard, was an illusory protection, because, in its view, a decision on a referendum would be a political decision and therefore not subject to judicial review?

[Chris Bryant]

Indeed, I have read the Committee’s report. I thought it was interesting, not least because the Committee includes significant Eurosceptics on both sides of the House. Much as I admire and respect—and almost adore—the Minister for Europe, I fear that the Bill is a complete and utter chimera. It does not do what it seeks to do, it will not do what many hon. Members on the Government Back Benches hope it will do, and in the end, it will damage the country’s interests.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Wayne David and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Let me deal first with the process. The Minister referred to statutory instruments. All the amendments we are discussing, bar the one tabled by members of the Scottish National party, were tabled by the Government, and they cover some 28 pages of the amendment paper. They were not tabled because the House demanded amendments, or because the Government said in Committee that they would consider probing amendments and return with further amendments on Report. They have been introduced because the Government have gone through a process of putting various carts and horses in the wrong order. I fully recognise that I am not as versed in country ways as the Minister, who represents the Forest of Dean, but I recognise when parliamentary procedure is being put in the wrong order, and it would have made far more sense to have proceeded with pre-legislative scrutiny and proper consultation with the devolved Administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and then to have proposed legislation in draft form. We should bear it in mind that not a single devolved Administration wants a combination of polls next May, but if the Government’s view is nevertheless that they wish to push forward with that, against the wishes of the three devolved Administrations, they can then introduce statutory instruments to make provision under the Scotland Act 1998, the two Wales Acts of 2000 and 2006 and the Northern Ireland provisions. They would do that first, and the proposals would then be considered in this House and the House of Lords and, if agreed to, the Government would introduce the final version of their Bill. Instead, because the Government are running at an inappropriately fast pace for this kind of legislation, there has been no consultation whatever with any of the devolved Administrations—with either the Assemblies or the Parliament or the Executives or Governments in each of those nations.

There has been no process of consultation on the Bill, but there has also been no process of consultation on the orders. The Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2010 is some 205 pages long; it is not a minor tome. It includes measures on election expenses, disputed claims, corruption, entreating, the control of donations to candidates, the appointment of election agents, the requirement of secrecy, the breach of official duty, tampering with nomination papers, and personation and other voting offences. I am sure the Government will say that this entire matter is a reserved responsibility and that it is for the Westminster Government to decide, but it would have showed greater respect for the devolved Administrations if they had consulted them before the orders were laid.

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

On the consultation issue, I know from experience that regular meetings used to take place, and presumably still do, between the First Minister in Wales and the Secretary of State for Wales, and I guess that the situation in Scotland is the same. The meetings take place frequently—sometimes once a week, or even more—so there is no reason why there cannot be dialogue and consultation at a relatively early stage. Can my hon. Friend explain why even the most basic communication has not taken place?

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[Chris Bryant]

I was actually trying not to suggest a threshold. The hon. Lady is right in one sense, of course. I hope that this might appease my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton as regards some of what he said. There is a complexity about the referendum that we might have next May, because we might have very differential turnout in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England.

If, for instance, there were to be a very low turnout in England that returned a no vote and a very high turnout in the other places—there is a Scottish parliamentary election, in Northern Ireland there are two other sets of elections and in Wales there is the Assembly election at the same time, and in Wales and Scotland those feel in many senses like general elections—returned significant yes votes, people might start to question the validity of what we were doing. This is all the more important because the referendum is not just an advisory referendum—as referendums have always been in the past—but an implementing referendum. In other words, if there is a yes vote, it comes into law. It happens, and the next general election will be held on the basis of the alternative vote.

I am not convinced by the arguments that are being advanced in favour of thresholds. I personally will be voting yes in the referendum. I do not believe that there should be a referendum, but there is a legitimate argument that others might want to consider about whether the fact that we are combining the polls will produce a differential turnout in different parts of the country that might make a necessity of a threshold.

[Mr David]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I think that a Welsh colleague is desirous of my attention.

[Mr David]

As well as making a powerful comment—and judgment, really—on the proposal for a threshold, is my hon. Friend not harking back to what we talked about earlier, making a convincing case not to have the elections in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on the same day or to have the AV vote on the same day?

[Chris Bryant]

Absolutely. As somebody who supports alternative vote, which I know my hon. Friend does not, and as somebody who will want to see a yes vote in the referendum, I find that one of the most depressing things—I think this is true of others in the Chamber who want to see change to the electoral system—is that the way in which the Government and, in particular, the Deputy Prime Minister have proceeded with this has made it more difficult for many to advocate that cause and to push for reform. Now, I shall give way to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing)—

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Wayne David and Chris Bryant

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I do not agree with my hon. Friend if he is suggesting that the Committee’s report is a disgrace, because it is excellent in highlighting the implications for Wales of the Government’s proposals on constitutional reform. But my neighbourly Friend makes a good point: the Committee is not comprised of rabid left-wingers—or, for that matter, entirely of members of the Labour party—and those who voted on this matter, those who turned up, were predominantly Conservatives. In fact, one of them is now a Parliamentary Private Secretary. Many of us deprecate the fact that there are PPSs sitting on Select Committees, but I note that the PPS who sits on this one chose to absent himself from the vote. I can presume only that that was because he agreed with the findings of the Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) is absolutely right to say that the Committee makes it clear that there has not been adequate scrutiny of the Bill, particularly in regard to Wales. It also makes the wider point about the amount of time that has been allowed in general.

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will of course give way to my other neighbourly Friend.

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[Mr David]

My hon. Friend has many neighbourly friends. He puts his finger on a crucial point about the speed with which this Bill is being introduced. Does he agree that not only that a number of Conservative Members sit on the Welsh Affairs Committee but that, significantly, its Chairman is a Conservative?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, and I not think anybody could call the Committee’s Chair a patsy. He is a man of fierce independence—sometimes overly fierce, and sometimes overly independent—and the Select Committee’s findings were extremely clear. It reported:

“The Government is determined to pass this legislation quickly in order that the referendum on the Parliamentary electoral system can take place in May 2011. However, we agree with the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee”,

which, incidentally, does not have a Labour majority on it either,

“that the Bill has been given insufficient time for proper scrutiny. ”

It continued:

“The Welsh Grand Committee gives all Welsh Members the opportunity fully to debate issues relating to Wales. That the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill impacts significantly on Wales is clear. In the light of this, we consider the Secretary of State for Wales’s decision not to convene a meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee in this instance to be very disappointing.”

Conservative Members are attacking a Conservative Secretary of State for Wales. It seems extraordinary that the Committee has not had an adequate opportunity to consider the Welsh element of the Bill, particularly the Welsh elements that are before us this afternoon, which are extensive.

Let me make another point about the proper process that should have been observed. We believe in pre-legislative scrutiny and consultation on any constitutional Bill, but this Bill additionally affects elections in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The previous elections for the Scottish Parliament led to significant problems, which my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) mentioned. This shows how important it is to have proper consultation with each of the devolved Administrations. By that, I mean, first and foremost, consultation “from Government to Government” as it were—that is, the Westminster Government speaking to the Scottish Executive, to Ministers in Northern Ireland and to the Welsh Assembly Government. That could have happened confidentially on a “Government to Government” basis; there is absolutely no reason why that should not have happened.

As I understand it, prior to the comprehensive spending review, extensive confidential discussions took place between relevant Ministers so that Ministers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland knew more than this House did about what elements would affect their budgets. I have no complaint about that happening with the comprehensive spending review; my argument is that it should apply to the devolved Administrations in respect of this Bill.

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[Chris Bryant]

For the most part, we agree that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Broadly speaking, we agree that where it has been determined that elections should take place on a four-yearly or other basis, and advance notice of their date has been given, it would be inappropriate to move them. Our point is that the referendum should not be on the same day as all those elections. I hope that he understands our reasoning; I think we are moving in the same direction.

[Mr David]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the exchange that has just taken place underlines the fact that not enough time has been allowed for proper dialogue and conversation?