Private Members’ Bills: Money Resolutions — House of Commons, 2018-05-21
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) on securing this important debate, and I thank you, Mr Speaker, for ensuring that it has been granted. It is unfortunate that we have to have such a debate under Standing Order No. 24, and the way that the Government have responded to it has been, to say the very least, disappointing There are lots of things I call the Leader of the House—I call her charming; I call her helpful; I call her a bit Brexitish—but I think she has been less than sensible in the way that she has approached issues to do with money resolutions in the House, and to continue to defy the majority opinion and view of this House consistently and over a period of time does her no credit whatsoever. The House has made a decision on these money resolutions, and it is incumbent upon the Government to ensure that the rules of this House are progressed. Where we are just now is very disappointing, not just for the important private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton, but particularly for that of my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil). There is strong and great cross-party support and consensus right across the House for his Bill and for this matter to be progressed to ensure that his Bill at least gets through There has been a pattern to what the Government have been doing since they were elected as a minority Government in 2017, which is their failure to acknowledge that they are a minority Government. They already do not appear to engage properly in Opposition day debates, and they certainly do not vote in the vast majority of them; they have stuffed the Standing Committees of this House with a majority of their Members even though they are a minority Government; they have done their best to ensure that the Democratic Unionist party has been given its £1 billion to ensure some of their legislation gets through; and the way they have dealt with private Members’ Bills is consistent with that approach But we are not going to let the Government get in the way of our private Members’ Bills. We should say to this Government loudly and clearly, "Get your grubby hands off our private Members’ Bills, because they are far too important and valuable not just to this House but to our constituents right across this country." Private Members’ Bills are increasingly valued by our constituents, and they want to see legislation progressed through this mechanism; we increasingly see that reflected in our mailbags The arrangements for private Members’ Bills are bad enough, what with being at the mercy of the likes of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and, although he has changed his coat today, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) who consistently do what they can to block and filibuster on such Bills. Instead of thwarting private Members’ Bills, it is incumbent upon everybody in this House to ensure that they are properly enabled and supported, because they show this House at its very best All of us in this House have a passing interest in ensuring that private Members’ Bills are dealt with properly, because we all want to be champions of private Members’ Bills; we would all like that little bit of a legacy, where we have been able in some small way to shape legislation as a small contribution from our time as Members of Parliament.