Sir Christopher Chope
MP for Christchurch · Conservative · United Kingdom
“When was the last time that an allotted Opposition day was withdrawn in the way that the Leader of the House is withdrawing this one? I was looking at my calendar of business, otherwise known as the Order Paper, and it says that “The selection of the matters to be debated will be made by the Leader of the Opposition (Standing Order No.”
“The Climate Change Committee has condemned the Government for failing and falling short of adapting to climate change and accepting the reality as it is, which is that by the end of this century, global temperatures will have increased to between 3.5° and 4.5° above pre-industrial levels.”
“The Minister has referred to the grooming gangs inquiry carried out by our friend, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), and early-day motion 380 makes a number of recommendations. Will the Minister engage with the hon.”
“The landmark 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence by the United States takes place in the week commencing 29 June. I have applied for an Adjournment debate, but will the Leader of the House enable more Members to be able to participate in marking that historic event?”
“That is exactly what I did on behalf of my constituent Paul Kenchington: I wrote to the Secretary of State about the specialist steel that he uses, and I have not had a reply.”
“Next week, can the Leader of the House produce a Government statement in response to the Hallett review on covid-19 vaccines? Lady Hallett recommended major reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme.”
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“In summary, what I am really saying is that I despair. I despair that this proposal has reached the stage it has. I look forward to hearing an explanation from the Leader of the House about why she thinks this is a good move. I hope that she will be able to explain how our fears and concerns about dangerous precedents can be allayed. Strategic thinking is perhaps just the start of a takeover bid by the Liaison Committee of almost all the other subjects that are the remit of individual Select Committees at the moment. Who knows? In the absence of any contribution from the Chair of the Liaison Committee himself, we depend on the knowledge that the Leader of the House has gained from the briefing that she has no doubt received, as I did, from the Liaison Committee.”
“Member for Warley (John Spellar) implies, if an oral evidence session is not within the remit of the one of the specific Sub-Committees of the Liaison Committee, to which I referred earlier, there will be a need for a quorum and for people to be there paying close attention to the evidence. Where are we going? This is essentially a new Select Committee that is being expanded to cover everybody else’s areas of responsibility so that it can have a grandiose role. It is not sufficient for it to be able to hold the Prime Minister to account and allocate questions to the Prime Minister among Liaison Committee members—now we are getting into the whole area not of the role of Select Committees in holding the Government to account on their strategic challenges, but of the strategic challenges in toto.”
“That is a very good point. The Committee is specifically calling for written evidence. Normally, when Select Committees call for written evidence and that evidence comes in, they decide that the most compelling evidence should probably be supplemented by oral evidence from those who have submitted the written evidence. It is, I presume, implicit in the fact that the Committee has invited written evidence that it will also receive oral evidence and will cross-examine, or question, some of the people who have submitted that written evidence, whether it be from Members of the Australian Parliament, the Canadian Parliament or the Hungarian Parliament. Who knows, but I imagine that they will be holding oral evidence sessions. As the right hon.”
“I am delighted to hear from my hon. Friend that the Liaison Committee will confine itself to that but, in that case, why are the terms of reference calling for written evidence by 15 September so widely set that they cover—I will not repeat all those points, Madam Deputy Speaker—which Governments around the world demonstrate best practice in strategic thinking? There are also references to strategic thinking about Select Committees—”
“When the Secretary of State made his remarks earlier about the sudden resignation of the chief executive of HS2 from his £660,000 a year job, did he take into account the fact that the project is delayed by at least five years and that the costs have quadrupled? Will he also take into account the fact that the cost plus basis of contracts is now one of the main reasons for the increased costs?”
“By how much will today’s announcement reduce the burden of regulation on UK business? I ask that because the Government promised that there would be no net increase in the burden of regulation on business during this Parliament, but so far we are £14.3 billion in the wrong direction.”
“8. What assessment he has made of the implications for his polices of the Regulatory Policy Committee statement on the Renters (Reform) Bill impact assessment, published on 3 July 2023.”
“What a facile answer! Does my right hon. Friend not accept the criticisms of the RPC that the impact assessment is very weak in that it fails to address the impacts of the Bill on competition, innovation and investment, and on landlords who run small businesses and microbusinesses?”
“As someone who has the privilege of serving on my right hon. Friend’s Procedure Committee, may I ask her whether she can recall a single occasion when the Procedure Committee has produced a report naming individuals without giving those individuals the opportunity first to present evidence? Is it not the problem that we have a report based not on evidence but on stuff that has been tweeted? As somebody who does not do tweets, I am ever more grateful that I do not.”
“Does my right hon. Friend accept that in 2050, on present Government policies, we will have 25 million more people in this country than there were in 1990, the base date for carbon dioxide emissions? He obviously accepts that a higher population leads to higher global emissions, but can he also say that when it comes to climate change, it would be a good idea for this Government to concentrate on a net migration policy, rather than net zero?”
“As I said in an earlier debate, if we allow people who are excluded from the estate because of conduct unbecoming to have proxy votes, that will contaminate the whole process. I am grateful to the Leader of the House for not contaminating this amendment to the Standing Order.”
“I hope that, during the rest of this Parliament, there will be an attempt on both sides of the House to see whether we can introduce some rigour and consistency into the way in which people with medical conditions can access proxies and the circumstances in which they cannot. The motion is also valuable because, by inference, it excludes any suggestion that people who are temporarily suspended from the House for conduct unbecoming should be able to creep back in through the proxy voting system. People who are absent from the House because of their own conduct, which is nothing to do with health or baby leave, should under no circumstances be able to exercise a proxy vote. The motion does not facilitate that; I think, by inference, it excludes it.”
“My concern, which I expressed during the Committee’s discussions, is that it is fine when we have a Government with a large working majority —people will not be too fussed about issues such as whether somebody with a medical condition who is on the estate is also able to have a proxy vote—but if, after the next general election, the balance between the Government and the Opposition were much closer, or there were even a hung Parliament, I can see that difficulties might arise and the Members of the new Parliament might want more rigour written into the Standing Order than I think there is in the current version. That is why it is important that the amendment is made only for the duration of this Parliament.”
“I very much support the motion and, as a member of the Procedure Committee, have been involved in some of the discussions of it. One of the most important elements is that the amendment to the Standing Order is made only for the duration of this Parliament.”
“I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his persistence in trying to hold the Government to account on this subject. He refers to the culture, particularly in the Department of Health and Social Care, of keeping things to themselves, playing cards close to their chest, not having regulatory impact assessments and, in effect, as he says, imposing good ideas on the basis of heroic assumptions that are not being tested. May I encourage him to carry on his good work?”
“The Minister referred to mRNA technology. Are the Government absolutely convinced that the technology is safe and effective? Are they in danger of putting all their eggs into that particular basket?”
“Friend the Minister, in responding to this debate, will be able to promise that we will introduce a population policy. I hope he will.”
“The contribution that net migration makes to population growth is important, but let us first of all get a policy on our population. We have not had a population policy in this country. Why do not Ministers go off and see what is being done in Hungary, which is addressing this problem in a really constructive way? It is incentivising the home-grown population to grow their families, while at the same time having tight control over migration from outside, and encouraging people to develop their skills instead of allowing employers to take the easy shortcut of bringing in people who are already trained from overseas, thereby denuding those economies of their skillsets. There is a lot to be done, and I do not know whether my right hon.”
“They are talking about GDP growth as being a good thing, but what should really count is GDP growth per person—per capita—and if you look at the figures, Mr Paisley, you will see that, in effect, over the last 10 years GDP per head of population has been static. We have not had that growth, so when people feel that they have not shared in the growth, the answer is no, they have not, because to a large extent the growth is actually being generated just by having more people in the country. The Government can brag about the fact that we have higher growth than Germany, but actually that growth is a mirage in terms of the economy, because it is not growth per head of population; it is the overall growth created by just bringing more people into the country, so this is an overdue but very timely debate.”
“They are prescribing that, but they have no policy whatever on the number of people we think it is right to have in our country. I visited Hungary with some colleagues a few weeks back. Hungary does have a strong population policy. The Prime Minister there, who recently got re-elected with a two-thirds majority in Parliament, has the support of his people in recognising that one can limit immigration and at the same time grow one’s population and grow one’s economy. On the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings made about growth in the economy, I think that is one of the most destructive policies that this Government are adopting.”
“When the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I have the privilege of serving, was asking an environment Minister the other day what is being taken into account in determining the impact of rising population on the ability of the Government to deliver on their net zero targets, there was a big gasp—“Oh, well, there is no briefing on that.” He did not have a clue. All that happened was that the Minister resorted to talking about heat pumps. He seemed to think that that was the answer to the question, which I raised. Yet we know that heat pumps are a subsidiary issue. The Government keep setting targets for almost everything under the sun. Yesterday, I visited a garden centre and found that the Government are prescribing the amount of peat that we can have in a grow bag.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. It is great to be able to participate in this debate, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) on introducing it. I will concentrate on the issue of the population, because that is the core issue we have got to address. In 1990, which is the base date for all our policies relating to net zero and so-called climate change, the population then was about 20% less than it is now. There has been a 20% increase in population since then, yet all our net zero targets are related to absolute figures, rather than to carbon dioxide emissions per head of population. That is a dimension to the debate that I do not think we have sufficiently addressed.”
“Will my right hon. Friend apologise for the delay in producing this impact assessment? Will he also explain to the House why the four countries of Scandinavia have been able to reduce the number of asylum applications from 239,000 in 2015 to 28,000 last year? Why have they been able to do that when we cannot? Why is our asylum process still taking longer than it ought to? The rate at which asylum applications are being dealt with is currently at its slowest ever.”
“In November 2022, the Commission launched “a consultation on excluding Members charged with violent or sexual offences from the Parliamentary estate until any such cases are concluded”. That is a very narrow and specific subject for consultation. There seems to have been a heck of lot of mission creep since then, does there not?”
“That process would be dealt with by the courts, it would be subject to appeal if the person concerned did not like the terms of those bail conditions and it could mean that, in certain circumstances, a person awaiting trial would not have the free run of this House of Commons if it meant he would be in close contact, in particular parts of the estate, with somebody who had brought an allegation against him. That is a perfectly coherent, logical position. I note that one of the people who responded to the consultation effectively said that, if the charge is made and the person is the subject of bail conditions, those conditions could cover the scenario that we are concerned about. Obviously, if the charge is so serious, the person will be remanded in custody, so he will not be able to attend the House at all.”
“Sometimes those conditions can include a requirement that the person shall not go within so many hundred yards of a particular place or visit a house of an alleged victim or complainant. If we stick to the original proposal from the Commission, if somebody has been charged with an offence and, when the bail conditions are considered, representations are made to the effect that somebody working in the House of Commons feels vulnerable or threatened by that person pending the conclusion of the proceedings, conditions can be placed upon that bail that would provide the necessary safeguards against the risk assessment.”
“It is said now that, because several consultees mentioned the need to allow for some flexibility in the system, the Commission’s approach is “focused on the nature of the risk and the severity of the alleged offence rather than the stage of the criminal justice process”. However, nobody has explained why we are making that change. There is a fundamental difference between somebody who has been charged with an offence and somebody who has not. The person who has been charged knows exactly what offence they have been charged with. It is public knowledge. Connected with that charge is the ability of the courts to put that person on remand awaiting trial, either remanding them in custody or on bail and, if remanding them on bail, remanding them on particular bail terms and conditions.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire); perhaps she can answer the question why the Commission has changed its remit completely. In November last year, as I said in an intervention, it agreed to launch a consultation on excluding Members charged with violent or sexual offences from the parliamentary estate until such cases were concluded. That was limited to people who had been charged with violent or sexual offences. The paper before us today says that that remit has been changed because one or two of the 22 people who responded to the consultation said it was too inflexible. What is the explanation for that change?”
“The hon. Lady is prejudging the situation. She is saying that, if somebody makes a complaint and it is taking the police a long time to investigate it, the person under investigation should be jeopardised and treated as though they are guilty rather than innocent. I am not prepared to accept that as a proposition.”
“Lady not forget that Members of Parliament are not subject to the Disclosure and Barring Service. As long as they are not currently serving a sentence of imprisonment of more than a year, they can stand and be elected as Members of Parliament while still on the sex offenders register. Are we suggesting that we should change the Representation of the People Act 1981 to restrict—”
“In a situation where a specific person who is working on this estate has brought a complaint against somebody that is the subject of investigation but has not yet reached a charge, there is nothing to stop the House authorities making provision to look after that person and perhaps enabling them to be absent from the estate or to move somewhere else on the estate. There is no reason at all why an elected Member of Parliament should be put in jeopardy and face the prospect or the threat of being humiliated in public because he is the subject of an investigation—or she is the subject of an investigation. Investigations are not the same thing as charges. That is why, in my view, the report we are discussing is ill-conceived and should be sent back and be subject to fresh consultation. Let the hon.”
“Okay, the hon. Gentleman thinks we should change the Representation of the People Act. That is fine. Let somebody bring forward the proposal to do that. Let them do that expressly and overtly and say that there is a certain additional category of people who are ineligible to stand for election or to be elected to this place. What we have here is a back-door attempt to try to achieve that objective without changing the primary legislation.”
“If they bring a charge, the proposals that I have referred to will be triggered, but unless and until a charge is made, the provisions will not be triggered.”
“I agree with the right hon. Gentleman completely. That is my concern. Essentially, this proposal opens the floodgates to vexatious accusations that will deny the accused the right to make representations or appeal against any decision to exclude. The specific proposal before the House is that somebody who is the subject of one of these vexatious accusations would not have the right to make representations to the panel or, if they did not like the outcome of that panel, to appeal against the decision. The Commission goes on to say that the system will depend “upon the provision of concrete information from the police… In practice, this is very unlikely to happen prior to an arrest.” Surely, though, if the police have such concrete information, as it is put, there is nothing to stop them bringing a charge?”
“We have good, constructive proposals, but they would be completely wrecked if they were confused with the proposal before the House. If we want to change the Representation of the People Act, let us be open and say, “We do not want people in this House who are on the sex offenders register. We do not want people to be Members of Parliament unless they have been submitted to the Disclosure and Barring Service.” Unless or until we take that route, which would mean changing primary legislation, I do not think that we should mess around by indulging people who make accusations—often vexatious ones—against Members of Parliament. We should not indulge them by saying that, prior to that accusation resulting in a charge, the Member of Parliament will be excluded from his duties in this House.”
“That is exactly the sort of situation that will arise should the proposals go forward: people will be able to work out who is acting as the proxy for those who are the subjects of suspicion and have been excluded from the House under these conditions, and those exercising the proxy will be vilified. As I say, that will completely discredit the whole proxy system. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House says that the proxy system is the way to avoid prejudice through lack of confidentiality, but I think that that is wholly ill-conceived. It is certainly not acceptable to members of the Procedure Committee, and it does not fit easily with the proposals that we are bringing forward for the revision of the whole proxy process.”
“Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), is unfortunately unable to be here this evening because she is away on parliamentary business overseas—and we found it totally unacceptable, because the proxy system is designed for those who are on maternity leave and those with serious health conditions. As soon as somebody is in receipt of a proxy not because they are ill, expecting a child or on maternity leave, but because they are accused of having committed a serious violent or sexual offence, the proxy system will be contaminated. How do we know that it will be contaminated? When proxy votes are exercised, that information appears in Hansard , and from what we have been told in the Procedure Committee, we know that some Members have been subject to vilification and abuse for acting as proxies for people who are absent.”
“That would mean that people who are not Members of this House and have not been elected would be able to exclude a Member of this House who has been elected, and that that Member, once excluded, would not be able to appeal. How can that be fair? The Commission recognises the risk of prejudice to a Member by what it is proposing, and it therefore suggests that, to ensure privacy and confidentiality, Members should be able to vote by proxy, but that proposal is totally flawed. We discussed it in the Procedure Committee—our Chair, my right hon.”
“We know from colleagues on both sides of the House that that sometimes has a severe impact on the mental health and wellbeing of the individuals who have hanging over them the threat of a potential charge and the knowledge that an investigation of their conduct is under way. The point I am making is that the police should bring forward proceedings quickly if there is evidence in such cases. Then, the bail or remand conditions would determine the risk assessment, which goes to the heart of this discussion. Risks relating to risk-based exclusion of MPs should, in my view, be decided by the courts as part of that process. The proposal that we should do that in-house is completely wrong. The Commission’s proposal that two MPs and one non-executive member of the Commission should comprise the adjudication panel is even odder.”
“Such a lengthy period of investigation between arrests and possible charge is, I agree, totally unacceptable. It is capricious and oppressive. If that is where our criminal justice system is, there is plenty of room for improvement, but two wrongs do not make a right. Delays in the criminal justice system do not mean that we should intervene in an unjust way against somebody who is the subject of an investigation rather than the subject of a charge. That is a simple point. I think that the hon. Lady is biased in favour of the potential or alleged victims, while I am biased in favour of the person who is innocent until charged and proven guilty. Certainly, prior to the charge, when there are accusations in the air, it is bad enough that the accused may not have any idea of exactly what will happen.”
“At the moment, there is a question as to whether people who have voluntarily excluded themselves from the estate because of allegations made against them should be able to exercise proxy votes. I think the line has been taken that they should not be able to do so, because of the special circumstances surrounding their case. It would put them on a par with people who are very ill or on maternity leave.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Both my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) and I were talking about the importance of the presumption of innocence before being proved guilty. That is why I say that I have a bias in favour of the accused. The accused is innocent until proven guilty, and the hon. Lady seems sometimes to forget that.”
“To what extent is the hon. Lady sympathetic to the plight of those who are on the receiving end of false accusations? My understanding is that she herself has been on the receiving end of vexatious allegations that related to social services and her children. From that, she must feel the enormity of the burden that such false accusations bring upon somebody’s shoulders. Does she not have any sympathy for other Members of Parliament in that regard?”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that road congestion is bad for the economy, bad for the environment and bad for the mental health of motorists? To that extent, why are the Government pursuing policies that are making road congestion worse rather than better?”
“Tomorrow some of us will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of our first election to this place. Will my right hon. Friend give Government time for a debate on the comparison between the quality of public services in 1983 and the quality of public services today, and on the impact on those public services of the more than 20% increase in population since 1983?”
“Before I call the hon. Gentleman, I need to know that both the mover of the motion and the Minister are happy that he should make a short speech. Is that the case?”
“Order. The hon. Gentleman is eating into valuable time. He is probably right that we should allow the Minister to respond to this debate now.”
“Before I call Barry Gardiner, I remind hon. Members that we have the wind-up speeches at 5.10 pm at the latest, so each contribution should be a maximum of five minutes.”
“Has my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State read the report “Safe and Effective?” produced in April by a group of senior clinicians, which is very critical of the work of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency? If he has not yet read it, will he do so, please?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You were in the Chair yesterday when the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities expressed his enthusiasm for the publication of impact assessments for new legislation. The Renters (Reform) Bill is awaiting Second Reading, and there are two impact assessments, neither of which have yet been made available to Members of the House. What can be done to ensure that they are made available before we have Second Reading?”