argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes the point about reducing cost by reducing the number of MPs. Will he commit to reducing the size of the Government by the same proportion as the number of MPs he is trying to cut? If he does not do that, it will give the Government more control over Parliament, which to many of us is unacceptable. Of course, if he reduced the number of Ministers, he would save a bit more money as well.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Tyrone Ellis (Conservative, Centre-right): The appointment of Ministers is ultimately a matter for the Prime Minister and I am certainly not going to comment on that. Ministerial numbers must reflect what the Prime Minister of the day feels she or he needs for the Government to work effectively.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Tyrone Ellis (Conservative, Centre-right): I recognise that—the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975, I think—but that relates to the maximum, not the minimum. However, the appointment of Ministers is a matter for the Prime Minister There are many different views on what form the House of Lords should take and we have heard some of them this afternoon. Without consensus, as I have said, there is no practical possibility of taking such reform forward, and this was clear from the attempted passage of the House of Lords Reform Bill in 2012. It was withdrawn not for lack of commitment from the Government, but because there was no overall agreement about what that reform should look like. When there are so many pressing constitutional reforms, not least devolving more powers to Scotland and Wales and delivering all that is necessary for the UK’s exit from the European Union, it is on those subjects that we should focus our attention in this Parliament. It would not be right to distract from or derail important reforms elsewhere by making House of Lords reform a priority. That is why we do not support the motion.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Tyrone Ellis (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government have decided that it is not a priority for this Parliament to address that issue. The fact of the matter is that attempts were made during the last Parliament, as I have said, and there is no consensus. There are high priorities, including exiting the EU and further devolution for Scotland and Wales. Those are the priorities. That is why we do not support the motion, as I said. That, Mr Speaker, is the conclusion.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman has suggested that the Boundary Commission, and therefore the commissioners, are guilty of a gerrymander. May I invite him to reflect on that? We have independent commissioners who are looking at our parliamentary boundaries. To impugn their honour, their integrity and their independence belies the hon. Gentleman.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to take part in this debate after three outstanding Front-Bench speeches from three individuals—the hon. Members for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) and my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis)—who had distinguished careers outside this place before they came here Many of us, I suspect, will be familiar with the political gambit that is the dead cat. Popularised by my friend and colleague Sir Lynton Crosby, the idea is that when one is in a position of deep political embarrassment one throws the equivalent of a dead cat on to the table. The purpose of so doing is to divert attention from what was just being discussed because, whatever the controversy that has been raging beforehand, people suddenly say, "Oh my God, there’s a dead cat on the table." The conversation having changed as a result, embarrassment—such as my own at my execrable Australian accent just then—is avoided In this debate, the House of Lords, perhaps appropriately for an ermine-clad Chamber, is the dead cat. The SNP has chosen a discussion of the future of the House of Lords for this Opposition day debate because of a wish to divert attention from a number of other issues. The question I have to ask SNP Members is this: when they think about the issues that their voters bring to them in their surgeries or by email or correspondence, what are they? Overwhelmingly, they will be education, health, law and order and the economy. Why is the SNP not talking about those issues today? I will tell the House—[Interruption.] Order! The SNP is not talking about law and order because its centralisation of power in the hands of Police Scotland has been widely viewed as illiberal and is thought by local authorities in Scotland to have been a disaster.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Education
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker We are not hearing about education because the Scottish National party has had to execute a humiliating U-turn and its Education Minister, Mr Swinney, has had to adopt our policies on education by giving funding to schools—
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): Indeed. One of the challenges, as has been pointed out by those on both Front Benches, is that when SNP Members put forward proposals for the House of Lords, they offer no alternative method of scrutiny. They simply propose unicameralism. Not only that, but they do not observe the basic pragmatic principle of the British constitution that we should preserve what works. Like the monarchy, the House of Lords is an institution that works, despite the fact that it might not succumb to every rational imprint. I speak as a Minister who has been held accountable and who has been cross-questioned—[Interruption.] An ex-Minister, I should say. I have been cross-questioned by Select Committees in the House of Lords with a greater degree of pertinacity and effectiveness than I have found in any other cross-examination I have ever faced The logic behind the SNP’s position is that if it objects to any constitutional model that does not fit its own preconceptions, it should object to the monarchy. The real thrust behind the SNP’s position is that it opposes the institutions that bind the United Kingdom together and are a focus for loyalty in this country, such as the monarchy, because of its single-minded pursuit of separation and independence come what may. If SNP Members really object to unelected figures meeting in a fashion that results in democratically elected Members of Parliament finding the will of the people frustrated, why are they so keen to stay in the European Union? If they object to unelected, unaccountable and out-of-touch figures wielding power, why do they not object to the existence of the European Council in its current form? Again, the answer is that they are only interested in separation One final point. We scarcely heard anything from the SNP on the vital importance of ensuring that all parliamentary constituencies should be of equal size. Having parliamentary constituencies of equal size was a demand of the Chartists in 1838, yet we still do not have them. I may be a young man in a hurry, and I may be an impetuous radical determined to bring about change at a pace faster than many would account, but surely, after nearly 200 years, the Chartists’ demands should at last be honoured. All votes should be equal, all constituencies should be equal and democracy should be honoured.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman makes a strong and telling point about the size of the upper House when compared with the number of elected Members. However, when the official Opposition in this place are in disarray and clearly not up to the job of official scrutiny, the bicameral system means that efficient scrutiny can be done in another place. Does he agree that we should cherish that safeguard?
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), and I should probably start with a declaration of interest, as my wife is a recently appointed life baroness in the Lords. I should add, for the benefit of Members opposite, that I believe she is now reconciled to the fact that before she was appointed I had voted repeatedly to abolish people like her, so it would be rather self-serving if I changed my mind now, as I hope everyone would agree. I am happy to inform the House that we are still talking even so. Although I instinctively support Lords reform, I oppose this motion. Why? It is because it uses Lords reform not as a dead cat, but as an excuse to delay boundary reform, a much-needed and overdue improvement to the plumbing of our democracy. As we have heard, our current constituency boundaries are based on voter data that are already 15 years old or more. If we do not reform the boundaries now, they will be 20 years out of date by the next general election. As the old boundaries produced constituencies that varied tremendously in size, votes in one part of the country carried far more, or far less, weight than votes in another. It is a fundamental principle of our democracy that everybody’s vote must count the same as that of their neighbour. It does not matter whether you are rich or poor, what colour your skin may be or what god you worship, my vote carries no more weight than yours, Mr Deputy Speaker, and yours is worth no more than Nicola Sturgeon’s. Without that, our elections will not be fair.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): Not at all. I am making an impassioned plea for equal-sized constituencies and for votes to weigh the same. I can think of nothing more dangerous for our democracy, and nothing more corrosive of trust in politicians and the political system, than a sense that some favoured voters get a better deal than others in other parts of the country.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), who expressed himself with such vim and vigour The motion tabled by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) is an important motion and a proper subject for us to debate. It is something that we have been debating for hundreds of years. The earliest debate I can find for deciding to limit the House of Lords is in 1719, and we will all remember that the Parliament Act 1911 states that it is a temporary measure until a more democratic means of choosing an upper House can be found These problems are not new, and there are serious problems with the House of Lords. I do not think anyone would try to pretend otherwise. It is not by any means perfect and its imperfection is partly in its size, partly in its unaccountability and partly, as the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire so rightly said, in its Liberal Democrats. I do not say that as a cheap shot against the Liberal Democrats, though those are perfectly fun. I say it because the very large number of Lib Dems who are there, who are abusing their position in the Lords to thwart the will of the elected Government, have made a real problem for the Government and for the democratic legitimacy of the House of Lords. There are unquestionably problems, but what is the solution What we have considered in previous Parliaments is a democratically elected upper House. That sounds very sensible in theory, but there is a fundamental problem for us in this House that if we have a democratically elected House of Lords, its powers will be equal to ours. Even if the letter of the law allows us to overrule the Lords, that will soon cease to be a political reality. A democratically elected House of Lords challenges the Commons, and if a democratically elected House of Lords is on a different electoral system, it might even claim a higher validity than we have and therefore the right to overrule us. Then we would probably have a gridlocked system like that in the United States, with the two Houses being unable to co-operate and an inability to govern and to get legislation through.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that the Liberal Democrats were complicit in the failure of their once-in-a-generation opportunity for House of Lords reform by bringing forward a ludicrous proposal for a 15-year non-renewable mandate, which would have challenged the authority and mandate of this House?
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
David Thomas Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): I am going to do something very brave and propose a solution to the problem down the corridor. I do not want to get rid of any of the lords, so I will not vote for this motion. Without wanting to be controversial, I have a bloodless solution. If we retired lords at 75 years of age, we would remove approximately 250 of them straight away. Let us not forget that the lords are there not to represent but to scrutinise. We do not want to get rid of every one of them, because there is expertise down there that can outweigh expertise in this Chamber—especially on the SNP Benches The average age in the Lords is 70, believe it or not, while the average age of those who actually contribute in the other place is 65. After that age, attendance drops off dramatically. We have to look at this in the round. If we reduced the Lords by 250 Members—those aged over 75—we would bring it down to approximately the size of the Commons. Those lords would then stay on to advise. They would not get paid or claim expenses, but go on to a higher Chamber called the Lords council, and advise their own Committees. They could then feed into the legislative process without any cost to the taxpayer Outside this Chamber, nobody is talking about the Lords—it is only us in here. We should not throw the baby out with the bathwater; we should look at a grown-up way of getting the numbers down. Once we have done that, over a period of 15 years, natural attrition will take its toll. The 250 who have been put into the higher status could still call themselves lords, still have the gravitas and the gratification they want, and still contribute. They will go, and we can have an apportioned system, with so many Conservatives, so many from Labour and—dare I say it?—so many from the SNP. We can break it into segments. They will be able to scrutinise sensibly in a cross-party manner. I hope to have brought some kind of sense to this subject.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Mark Quin (Conservative, Centre-right): As the right hon. Gentleman has just said, those hereditary peers are elected. The motion states that the Government should "put in place plans to significantly reduce the number of unelected Lords" Is he proposing that the number of hereditary peers should stay the same, if he supports the motion?
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful that a fellow Gordonian has given way. Can the hon. Lady clear up for me an area of doubt and uncertainty? The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) said that the SNP spoke with one voice on the issue of House of Lords reform. He said that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) was an abolitionist and that that was SNP policy. However, the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) said he did not want to abolish the House of Lords, but merely wanted to reform it. What is SNP policy? If it is abolition, is the hon. Member for Edinburgh East out of line?
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher James Skidmore (Conservative, Centre-right): It has been an honour to listen to this well-attended and, at times, feisty and passionate debate. I must admit that I am somewhat surprised at the SNP’s obsession with this particular issue and that they would choose this subject for their Opposition day debate. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) noted, we could have discussed other issues. I lost count of the number of times that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) talked about ermine Let us look at the public mood on this matter. A YouGov poll of June 2012 asked a simple question on the proposition: "Reform of the House of Lords is vital: it should be a priority to change the system" Only 18% agreed, with 20% saying the House of Lords should be left alone. The overwhelming majority—52%—said that it was not and should not be a priority. The 2015 Conservative manifesto agreed with this principle by saying that it was "not a priority" in the next—meaning this—Parliament As the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons said at the beginning of the debate, the House of Lords has begun reform in the last few years. Important reforms have been introduced and they have been successful because they have been driven by the Lords themselves. Since the introduction of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, for instance, peers have been able to retire simply by giving written notice to the Clerk of the Parliaments.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Mark Quin (Conservative, Centre-right): The Minister has referred to reforms that have taken place over the past few years. Does he share my concern about the possibility that the motion, as drafted, could reduce the number of appointed peers to less than the number of hereditary peers?
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher James Skidmore (Conservative, Centre-right): That is an interesting point, which I do not think has been made before in the debate. The motion could, in fact, suggest that the number of elected peers remain at 93, which would cause something of a constitutional abnormality Since the introduction of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, peers have been able to retire. Such retirement is permanent, and cannot be rescinded. More than 50 peers have chosen to retire, including 16 so far in 2016. That important reform has had an impact not just on the numbers in the House of Lords, but on the way in which it operates. The Act also provided for peers to be expelled for non-attendance, and the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015 gave the Lords new powers to expel its members for serious misconduct. The cost of the Lords has also been reduced by 14% in real terms since 2010 Let me now deal with some of the excellent speeches that have been made today. I welcome the return of the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) to the Front Bench. We once engaged in a debate together in Westminster Hall, but I am glad to see him back in the Chamber, and I am glad to see the rest of the shadow ministerial team as well When speaking of the number of peers who had been created, the hon. Gentleman conveniently forgot to mention that it was a Labour Government who created 408 of the current number. More recently, Labour used a peerage to appoint Baroness Chakrabarti to the shadow Cabinet. It is a shame that the hon. Gentleman decided to undermine her position here today My right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath made a fiery speech highlighting the essential fact of the British constitution—what matters is what works—and the vital role of the institutions that make up our Union. He also cited a key fact about boundary reform, pointing out that the call for equally sized constituencies had been a clarion call since the Chartists and the People’s Charter of 1838 My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), my excellent predecessor, said that he was even willing to put his own marital relations at risk for the sake of his belief in reform of the House of Lords. He also said that boundary reform to bring about equally sized constituencies was an essential priority.
House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons — House of Commons, 2016-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Henry Edward Millar Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I am pleased that my hon. Friend is talking about equalising constituency sizes in the House of Commons, and also about the importance of a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament. Will he reflect on the fact that the United States House of Representatives has just 435 members, and the French National Assembly 577?