Short Money — House of Commons, 2016-02-23
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): That is all very well, but Short money has nothing to do with the Cabinet Office. It is House business, not Government business. The whole point is that it enables Parliament to do its business properly. The accounting officer is not the permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office, but the Clerk of the House. The Leader of the House should be here doing his job properly and answering questions Can this Minister confirm that any changes will have to be debated, and voted on, on the Floor of the House? Can he confirm that because this is House business, it will not be subject to a Government Whip? This is the shoddiest so-called consultation I have ever come across. It deliberately forgets to mention that Short money is linked to how many seats and how many votes all the Opposition parties got at a general election, so the main reason Short money has increased in 2015 is that this Government have a much smaller majority than the Labour Government or the coalition Government, and the Opposition parties got more seats and more votes than in previous Parliaments Can the Minister confirm that, contrary to what he says, this is not a 19% cut? With inflation, it is a 24% cut. How can that be right when the Chancellor has increased the cost of his political office to the taxpayer by 204%? Or is there one rule for the Opposition and quite another for the Government The Minister said last time that the cost and number of taxpayer-funded Tory special advisers—the only bit of this that he is responsible for—is coming down, but that is not true either, is it? Since the general election that figure has gone up, so will the Government be taking a 19% cut on 1 April? No, I do not suppose they will The consultation, published in the half-term recess—the Minister should be ashamed of himself—allows just 11 working days for responses, and then seems to intend to implement a decision less than three weeks later. Will that give the two Conservative-chaired Select Committees that have expressed an interest in doing inquiries time to complete those inquiries? I do not suppose it will. That is another affront to this House Fair-minded people will conclude that the Government are developing a nasty authoritarian streak, and that an overweening Executive wants to crush all opposition because they are afraid of scrutiny. When we were in government we trebled Short money and the Tories did not hesitate to bank £46 million, so we will not take any lessons from the Minister. When I was Deputy Leader of the House in 2009, some people suggested that we should cut Short money for the Conservative party because other Departments in Government were facing significant cuts. We said, "No, democracy is worth protecting." This is not a consultation on cutting the cost of politics—we would welcome that. It is a pernicious ultimatum and the Government should withdraw it unless they are prepared to put Spads on the table as well. To quote the Minister, why should the Government be treated any differently from the Opposition? Feathering their own nest—that is what they are doing.