Private Members’ Bills: Money Resolutions — House of Commons, 2018-05-21
Topic: Government Operations
Alexander James Jorden Norris (Labour, Centre-left): Let me start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), on securing this debate and on the vigour with which he pursues this esoteric yet important issue. At the moment, Mr Speaker, he and I share a standing engagement, Wednesday at 9.30 am, but it is not for tennis, as you might like, nor is it for five-a-side football or even for a nice brisk run as is my preference. Instead, we go to the Committee Corridor every Wednesday to consider the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill. It is trapped in parliamentary purgatory: having been overwhelmingly supported on Second Reading, it has been denied a money resolution by the Government. So we meet but we cannot advance the process. We discuss this point briefly and then adjourn, and then we do it again the following week—it is rinse, wash, repeat. We are booked in for Wednesday and I know there will be room in the audience for hon. Members to observe us doing this At the first meeting, the Minister responsible for this Bill, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, said that no such resolution would be forthcoming as there is already a similar process in train to the one that my hon. Friend seeks to commence. That is an argument the Leader of the House has made today, but there are two significant holes in it. First, the case being made by the Government is not an argument against a money resolution being tabled; it is an argument against voting for a money resolution. It is perfectly reasonable for the Government to think this process should stop and that it would be a bad bit of legislation, and indeed the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) made a passionate argument against it. In which case, let us divide on the matter. But the Government refuse to bring forward that Division, which shows either that they know their argument is weak or that they cannot win a vote—or perhaps it is both those things. Either way, that is not a reason to withhold a money resolution Secondly, when the House overwhelmingly voted for this Bill on Second Reading, it did so knowing all the arguments that have been made here. This place was well aware of all of them, be they about finances or the nature of the review that is already in progress. We knew all those things—they are not revelations—yet this House divided and chose overwhelmingly to continue with the process. Now that is being thwarted because it is not convenient for the Executive; the will of this legislature does not fit with what the Executive want and, therefore, on a point of procedure, it seems it must be stopped. That is a particularly unsatisfactory state of affairs Prior to coming here, I thought that the best argument for codifying our constitution was to protect this place, and the public’s will, from an overbearing and overly strong Executive, but after a year here I have seen that a weak Executive—in terms of not commanding a majority —are just as dangerous to Parliament. Over the year, we have seen that this Government will do lots of things to get through the week: when they lose votes in the Lords, they make more Lords; when they lose votes in the Commons, they rely on secondary legislation; when the Opposition pray against secondary legislation, the Government make it hard to get it on the Floor of this House; when the Government are probably going to lose an Opposition day debate, they do not contest it; and when they might not want to hear what is said during an Opposition day debate, they put a statement on to reduce the time for it. All of those things are not really becoming in a Government; they are desperate acts of a weak Government Across this place, all 650 Members, with their different personalities and different reasons for being here, hold different roles: some are in the Government and some are in the Opposition; some are Front Bench and others are Back Bench; and there are first-time Members like me and grizzled veterans, like others. Whatever category we fall into we have one thing in common: we are custodians of this place. As such, we should treat it with respect and not weaken it in the pursuit of our own self-interest. With that in mind, I will be keeping my standing engagement with my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, hoping to move this Bill forward in line with the will of this place. It is time the Government tabled the money resolution to allow us to do so.