Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2015-05-27
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): May I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker? It is a real pleasure to see such a distinguished member of the Procedure Committee looking after our affairs this evening I really want to congratulate the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) on his superb maiden speech. It was the ideal maiden speech, containing everything that a good maiden speech should have. It was serious minded, enormously respectful of the House of Commons, generous to his predecessor—against whom I imagine the hon. Gentleman had quite a good campaign to have won so successfully—while also having a little bit of steel that good maiden speeches need so that we know that he means business in this House. I congratulate him most sincerely on a brilliant speech, supported by so many of his compatriots and fellow members of the Scottish National party. Looking at my own Benches, I fear it rather puts us to shame Speaking as a parliamentarian, the Scottish Nationalists have shown us how to behave today. They have come here more smartly dressed than the Conservatives; they have sat through the debate in greater numbers than those of my own party; and they have even let the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) have his usual seat. Their good manners and respect for the House of Commons is something that those on the Government Benches will look forward to taking very seriously over the next five years, because those of us who are Unionists recognise that their right to be here is just as great as those of us from England, Wales or Northern Ireland. That will be an important part of how this Parliament develops Let me turn to the Queen’s Speech. The Gracious Speech divides, I think, into two parts. There is the natural business of government—the important and urgent business of government, starting, of course, with the economy. What the coalition managed is beginning to yield considerable fruit. The latest monthly deficit figure was much ahead of forecasts, with a significant increase in tax revenues coming through. That is what it would have been reasonable to expect Tax revenues are a lagging indicator of economic performance, and the fact that they are now coming through more quickly probably means that the deficit will decline faster than it is currently forecast to do. That will give us a strong background ensuring that we can live within our means, and that the legislation to prohibit an increase in national insurance, income tax or value-added tax will be a type of legislation to which we can commit ourselves very easily. Nothing particularly difficult will be involved, because, in my view, the revenues have now been boosted, but also because any increase in VAT would probably reduce the tax take for the Government. It is already clear that businesses reaching the VAT threshold are deciding not to grow and not to take on extra customers, because as soon as they do, their costs will become 20% higher. I think that 20% is as high as VAT can reasonably be We saw that the 50p income tax rate raised less money than the 45p rate is raising now, and we all know the lesson of the Laffer curve: higher rates do not produce more income for the Exchequer. When we consider national insurance and income tax together, we see that the Government are, among other things, taking lower earners out of tax. If those people were put back into tax, they would merely have to be paid more in benefits, thus increasing the deficit On that side of things—the fiscal, or tax, side of things—the Queen’s Speech is admirable. Given that it is a continuation of the work done by the coalition, I suppose that it would be mean-minded not to pay tribute to the Liberal Democrats, who, although now reduced in number, played an important part in that work. I think that the nation should be grateful for the big decision that they made in 2010, at considerable cost to their party’s fortunes, to ensure that the country could get out of the mess that had been left Beyond that, however, there are the constitutional matters, which, to my mind, are of a piece, whether they concern English votes for English issues, more devolution, the European referendum or human rights. I say that because, between 1997 and 2010, the Government started a whole process of constitutional reform which they did not complete or round off. One example is devolution. It began in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but nothing was done for England. That is because it is very complicated to come up with a solution for England that meets the requirements of constitutional propriety, while also recognising that England contains 85% of the population. If England demands exact parity with Scotland, we shall probably have broken up the United Kingdom anyway. If the English want the Union, the onus is on them to recognise that, and to be generous to the other constituent parts of the United Kingdom That is why I support—although I note that there is opposition to it—the use of Standing Orders at some point during the progress of a Bill to allow English votes. Standing Orders are easy to suspend. A Standing Order could be suspended if, for example, a future Government were dependent on Scottish votes for their continuation. There might be a political cost, but the Government of the country could continue, and Members of Parliament from Scotland would remain exactly the same Members of Parliament. It would be like an extension of a Grand Committee. There would be an issue in which some Members of Parliament were not involved, but ultimately it would once more be in the power of the whole House to decide on it That is a much more flexible system than a legislative system that would create a Parliament within a Parliament. A legislative system would mean that the franchise would change, and the ability of MPs from other countries in the Union to vote on issues would be permanently reduced, whereas a Standing Order is essentially a self-denying ordinance that could be overturned for a single vote. Standing Orders are suspended fairly routinely when it suits the Government for business to run a bit late, or when they want Second and Third Readings to take place on the same day. That cannot be done with legislation. Standing Orders are not a means of playing some wretched trick on Scottish MPs, but a way of ensuring that the system in the House of Commons can work and can be fluid. However, I should prefer that to be a fairly limited aspect of our law-making, involving issues that are so clearly and unequivocally English—or English and Welsh—that no reasonable person would think otherwise. I do not want the standing of individual Members to be determined by the nation from which they come The other issues that we face—the European issues—stem, in a way, from the same source. They involve a loss of power from the House of Commons to the continent and to continental courts, or even to judges in our own country. I worry about that, not because I think that out of nowhere has come a common sovereignty that we must fight to the death to protect, but because we hold that sovereignty in trust for our electors, and we must and ought to have returned it to them every five years. Instead, we have given it away to judges in Strasbourg, and to some of our own judges across the road in the Middlesex Guildhall. That has made it easy for legislation to be overturned, and hard for it to be reinstated by the House of Commons I do not deny that there are some very clever judges. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), the former Solicitor General, said that there were judges who understood the law better than us mere politicians, and that may well be true. Nevertheless, we make the law, on behalf of our constituents, for the judges to interpret, and if we do not like the judges’ interpretation, it is for us to change the law. If we give away that power so that the judges become the final arbiter, we shall have given away something that does not actually belong to us, but belongs to our electors and to the British people The reform that I want is a reform that reasserts the principle of the sovereignty of Parliament, not as an end in itself, but because it supports democracy. That is where I think all the constitutional issues become involved. They are about respecting the will of the people, including the will of Scottish people to have more devolution, which I cannot deny, however much I want to. I stood in Scotland once; I got 9% of the vote. I did at least hold my deposit in Glenrothes, which is a fine town, and I very much enjoyed the experience. It is that level of democracy that we need to retain, be it in respect of devolution, Europe, or human rights.