Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): I am not going to give way to the hon. Gentleman. He should understand that I am not going to give way to him on that point. Only the Government can introduce legislation and be certain to get it debated. Once a private Member’s Bill has been given a Second Reading, it can proceed further only if the Government table the relevant motions, even if it was assented to by the whole House or by a significant majority, as happened during the last Parliament. Only the Government can amend a tax or a duty, and only the Government can table motions in relation to expenditure. It is a case of winner takes all, and that places a very special responsibility on every single member of the governing party I worry that this is all part of a trend. Of itself, this is not the biggest issue in the universe—of course it is not—but it is part of a trend in this Parliament since, I would say, 2010. The golden thread that runs through our parliamentary system is government by consent. It is not about the Government deciding everything because they have managed to take it all by winning, but about government by consent and the sovereignty of Parliament. Whatever the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean says—he and I have had many debates over many years—the truth of the matter is that the Government knew they were going to lose the vote and that is why they decided not to vote. That was absolutely clear, and it was what all the Whips were saying throughout the day The latest trick that the Government are playing in this winner-takes-it-all system—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) really should not lead with his chin on that issue. Their latest trick is to increase the payroll vote in Parliament. In this country, we have more Government Ministers than France, Germany and Italy put together—or, for that matter, than India, Pakistan and Australia put together. We have a vast number of Ministers. In addition, the Government now have 46 Parliamentary Private Secretaries, as well as 15 Government MPs who are trade envoys. All this is an exercise of patronage to make sure they hold on to power. If we look at the percentage of the governing party that that has represented since 1992, the interesting fact is that this is now the highest percentage ever, with more than 50% of Government MPs being part of the payroll vote. That is a despicable process for the Government to have adopted The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean said that the Opposition should have tabled a motion early in the year, so as to prevent the student fees regulations from coming into force. But the convention of this House, which he knows perfectly well, has always been that if the Leader of the Opposition prays against a statutory instrument—secondary legislation—the Government will provide time, in Government time, on the Floor of the House for a debate and vote within the timescale, so that the legislation can be prevented from coming into force if that is the will of the House. The Government’s Chief Whip refused to do that. When I asked, and when the shadow Leader of the House asked repeatedly, when we were going to get that debate, we were met with a consistent refusal This is a big breach of our constitutional rights in this House. In the last 12 instances when the Leader of the Opposition has prayed against, only five have led to the granting of debates and votes, and three of those were debates in Committee, where even if every single member of the Committee, including the Government Whip, voted no, the legislation would still go through because all the Committee is allowed to consider, under our rules, is whether or not the matter has been debated. In other words, it is the height of cheek—the most brass neck imaginable—to try to blame the Opposition for not providing time to debate statutory instruments laid down by the Government. That is why I say that hon. Members on the Government Benches should think very carefully about this business of whether the Government simply decide, when they think they are going to lose on a motion—a Back-Bench motion, an Opposition motion or any other kind of motion—to up sticks and say, "Oh well, it doesn’t really matter. It’s the kind of motion that doesn’t matter." There have been two other Back-Bench motions that I could cite in the last Parliament. One was on Magnitsky, tabled by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab); the other, tabled by the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), was on circus animals. The Government knew they would lose in both cases. They decided not to vote. So there was a unanimous vote in favour, and the Government have done absolutely nothing You should just beware. If you think we are Marxist Bolivarians, what will we do when we have these powers?