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“When was the last time that an allotted Opposition day was withdrawn in the way that the Leader of the House is withdrawing this one?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.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,444 lines we hold for Sir Christopher Chope, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 42 of 109.
“As we know, what we cannot measure, we cannot control. I remain concerned that some of the information that will be produced as a result of the Bill could lead to unintended consequences, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) also mentioned. We heard a reference to the fact that women in mental health units suffer more force against them than men, but that might be because only the most serious cases of women in mental units are brought before the—”
“On Report, I asked the Minister what state the draft guidance was in at the moment and if it was in a form in which it could be produced. I did not get an answer to that question. I also did not get an answer to the question of whether draft guidance would be published before the Bill goes to the other place. There is a lot to be said for the Government publishing the draft guidance tomorrow, say, or next week. One merit of doing that would be that if the Bill’s Third Reading debate does not conclude today, we would have the chance to look at that draft guidance before commenting on it during the remainder of the debate. As the hon. Member for Croydon North said, the Bill is important because it introduces means by which we can measure lots of things that are happening in our mental health units about which we are not aware at the moment.”
“I, too, pay tribute to the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) for bringing forward this Bill. He has done a masterly job. I was also impressed by much of what the Minister said in response to concerns that have been expressed. None the less, there are still some unanswered questions, particularly around the implementation of the Bill. The Minister has said that she will bring forward guidance as a substitute for some of the provisions that we think should have been included in the Bill. She said that we did not need other aspects that we thought should be included in the Bill because they were already in law. I hope that we will be able to keep up the pressure on the Minister to come forward with more precise answers regarding when she will publish the draft guidance.”
“Is not it right that we in this country are not able to exercise some of the rights that people would wish us to exercise? The freedom to be able to transport live animals for slaughter is a freedom that we would prefer not to have. As soon as we leave the European Union, we will be able to take control of those things for ourselves.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on having got his Bill so far. On the costs, the Data Guardian will basically be indemnified for the costs incurred, yet I see that the Data Guardian will have enormous flexibility to publish and give as much guidance or advice as they wish. Surely the Data Guardian could, by giving a lot more advice and guidance over which there is no control, result in significantly increased costs for the public sector?”
“Does my hon. Friend know of any case where a regulator given powers by Parliament has chosen to reduce the amount of powers that are used? Surely, the natural thing is for regulators to increase their activity, using the powers to the maximum and thereby increasing the costs.”
“There are other ways in which it could be delayed, and if we take the past as a guide to the future we should be suspicious of the Government when they are not prepared to include in the Bill a commitment for it to commence on a given date.”
“It may well be a standard clause, but such clauses are often abused by the Government. For example, Parliament passed a measure to outlaw exit payments for public sector workers in the Enterprise Act 2016. We are still waiting for the regulations under that primary legislation to be introduced. The Government now say that they will have to consult on them. Effectively, what Parliament thought was happening—the limiting of public sector exit payments—has not happened. The Bill is supported across the House, as the measure I have mentioned was. I should be grateful for some indication from the Minister of when the Government will implement it. It could be delayed by the Government by means of the regulation-making powers in the clause; or by the Government’s not appointing the Data Guardian.”
“Will the Minister assure us that she will take personal charge of ensuring that the Bill is brought forward quickly? To go back to the example I quoted earlier, I had a meeting with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and pointed out to her that one of the reasons there was a delay in implementing regulations was that civil servants did not have their heart in it and did not give it sufficient priority. The only way of ensuring that the civil servants in the Minister’s Department deliver on the wishes of the Committee and the House is for her to take charge and deliver. Will she ensure that the Bill is commenced before the end of this calendar year?”
“Order. Before we hear the answer to that intervention, I must say that we shall start the wind-ups at 10 minutes past 5, and I would very much like to get another speaker in.”
“Order. Before calling Ian Lucas, I would just say that Front-Bench winding-up speeches will start at 25 past 5. There are three people seeking to catch my eye, so I hope they will be able to divide the time between them reasonably fairly. I call Ian Lucas.”
“If the Government had blocked it at the time because they disapproved of it and they had said it needed a money resolution, we would not have had that legislation on the statute book with all the benefits it has brought to consumers.”
“The Member will need to have 100 Members present to secure closure; in the past, as night follows day, when they have secured closure and completed Second Reading, they will have a money resolution. I remember when Austin Mitchell introduced the licensed conveyancing Bill, which was hated by the then Conservative Government and strongly opposed, but the will of the House—I had the pleasure of supporting that Bill—was that that was a really good idea that would loosen up and liberate that rather closed profession of solicitors and enable people to get conveyancing done at less expense. That Bill therefore went through and went on to the statute book and has been a force for good.”
“Friend the Leader of the House that when she was listing all the wonderful private Members’ Bills that are currently before the House, I was very disappointed that she did not refer to one of the 19 that I had tabled for debate on 15 June. I felt that that was a serious omission. Many of my Bills do not need money resolutions. One of the unintended consequences of this new rule that the Government have adopted is that a well-advised private Member who is successful in the ballot will probably say, “I’m going to go for a Bill that does not need a money resolution, because a Bill with a money resolution faces an additional hurdle.” Let us imagine that a Member wins the ballot and introduces their Bill, but it has probably attracted some awkward customers on Second Reading who disagree with it and want to talk for a long time.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz). I think it is a pity that the Opposition have conflated the issue of process and procedure with the issue of substance relating to the particular Bill that we are discussing today. On the issue of process and procedure, I absolutely agree with all those who say that we should be having discussions about money resolutions. Obviously the Government can whip against them if they want to, but I suspect that in the case of this Bill, the House would probably support a money resolution. Perhaps that it why they are a bit inhibited about tabling one. I do not want to be caught up in the discussion about the merits or demerits of the Bill. However, I must say to my right hon.”
“I thought that we did not need to change it, because I thought the convention was that if a Bill secured a Second Reading it would get a money resolution, and that is the disappointment that has come out of this debate. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House says that the Government are now going to look at this on a case-by-case basis, so we now have another layer, basically with the Government—the Executive—saying “We’re going to second-guess Members’ priorities.” It is difficult enough to secure Second Reading for a private Member’s Bill, but once these Bills have done so the order in which they go into Committee is now solely under the control of the Government, because the Government decide whether or not Bills are going to have their blessing on a case-by-case basis.”
“The Government again play fast and loose with democracy; in this case, in Christchurch where 84% of local people voted against the proposition, but the Government are seeking to override that and at the same time use their ability to fight against the proceedings brought against them in the courts. They are using taxpayers’ money to do that, delaying the whole process and adding to the costs. I therefore ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for some consistency. If the Government are worried about spending £8 million on this, why are they not worried about spending many millions of pounds on fighting a fruitless battle against the people of Christchurch in the courts?”
“On today’s Order Paper there are two motions that seek to abolish Christchurch Borough Council—I hope that they will be blocked, resulting in in deferred Divisions on Wednesday in which the House will express its disapproval. Today, Christchurch Borough Council launched legal proceedings against the Government on the basis that those motions are retrospective and use secondary legislation to change primary legislation retrospectively. On the basis of that and of leading counsel’s advice, proceedings have begun against the Government. Are the Government, in the light of that, going to try and save money by saying, “Let’s resolve those legal proceedings before proceeding down the route of trying to reorganise local authorities in Dorset”? I fear that the Government response will be that they are not going to do that.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend about the rules in relation to expenditure, but it is ultimately for this House to decide what should be spent and what should not, and if the Government wish to test the will of the House on an issue of £8 million there is nothing to stop their doing so. That would be the appropriate way to proceed and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said, all we are talking about is not that the Government should grant or facilitate a money resolution, but that the opportunity should be given to the House to decide a money resolution—that is the issue. Turning briefly to the issue of substance, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House makes a big issue of the cost of £8.1 million, but let us compare that with what the Government are doing at the moment.”
“We have just allowed a money resolution to go through on the nod in relation to the Tenant Fees Bill and I think the sums involved are much higher than £700,000, yet under Standing Orders we were not allowed any separate debate on that. Can my hon. Friend explain why his Bill for £700,000 has 45 minutes but a much more expensive Bill has nothing?”
“My hon. Friend seems to be saying—in his typically generous way—that, for the greater good, he would be prepared to make a short-term sacrifice in respect of his own Bill. From the debate that took place earlier today, we know that one way of avoiding the problem that he encounters by having to have a money resolution debated and voted on in the House tonight would be to have a Bill without a money resolution. When he drafted his Bill, did he consider whether it would be possible to draft it in such a way that it would not require any more public money?”
“I do not know whether the Opposition will call a Division, which they can do following the decision that deferred Divisions shall not apply to this motion this evening, but if they are really keen to move forward with the Bill that they were complaining about this afternoon, which has not yet received a money resolution, they should be using every available procedural device available to them to promote that cause. One is sometimes left with the feeling that there is a bit of gesturing here and that people do not have their heart in it, so I want to see the Opposition’s heart reflected in votes in this House, rather than in just mere words. Having said that, some important points have been made, and I hope that the Minister will respond to them. Question put and agreed to.”
“I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing us to debate this motion up to the maximum of 45 minutes. I was disappointed when it was introduced, however, because there was not much detail. We have heard about the approximate sum of £700,000 a year, but paragraph 47 of the Bill’s explanatory notes states: “The Bill may result in some implementation costs for the bodies and individuals required to have regard to the Data Guardian’s published guidance, in that they will need to review and assess the relevance of the guidance.” When the Minister comes to respond to this short debate, I hope that she will explain how many of those bodies and individuals are actually funded out of the public purse, and therefore to what extent additional costs will be incurred for the Exchequer in addition to the approximate £700,000 per annum.”
“I am that person, but I know that the Minister believes not in the tyranny of the majority but in democracy and the undertaking given by the Government in the House of Commons in 2015 that no local authority would be abolished without its consent. May I ask him to confirm that the criteria to which he has just referred were not published until after submission of the application? They were only published in response to a parliamentary question from me.”
“In that case, why did my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State encourage the holding of that local poll, at tremendous expense to local people, implying that the decision taken would be compelling evidence in the case?”
“Before the Minister finishes, will he say something about the legal action that is being taken against the Government by Christchurch Borough Council on the advice of leading counsel, the letter before action that was sent, and the implications for good local government in Christchurch if we end up with litigation that ultimately results in the regulations being quashed?”
“I do not think we are going to make much progress in this Committee if there is such misrepresentation of the facts. Leading counsel was indeed asked by Christchurch Borough Council to look at the legal issues. It was only after the regulations were laid that the council went back to leading counsel and said that it was shocked to find that they were retrospective in effect. On going back a third time to leading counsel, they advised that the borough council had a good case for quashing the regulations and wrote a letter asking the Government to withdraw them. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset is completely irrelevant.”
“The hon. Gentleman certainly is—I hope—a friend of mine, because he is listening and that is healthy. I inform him, if he does not know already, that in response to a point of order on 10 May on the business question, Mr Speaker said: “Some people might think…that it is perhaps less than collegiate, kind or courteous on the part of the powers that be knowingly and deliberately to exclude the hon. Member for Christchurch from the Committee.” —[ Official Report , 10 May 2018; Vol. 640, c. 925.]”
“Can he also explain in answer to our hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West why, if both Bournemouth and Poole have those pressures, they refuse to merge together to save about £10 million a year, and insist that they will not merge unless they can also have Christchurch?”
“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the courteous way in which he has dealt with these issues throughout. Would that that had been the situation with all my colleagues! Putting that to one side, he has referred to the financial pressures. One of the consequences of what is being debated today is that Dorset County Council will no longer have the resources coming to it from Christchurch council tax payers, because Christchurch will be moved out of the county council area. That will reduce the income of the county council. From figures we have received, Dorset County Council receives more income from Christchurch than it spends on services in Christchurch. Therefore, can my right hon. Friend explain why the Government have rejected any suggestion that Christchurch could be part of a rural unitary?”
“It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset. I agree with many of the more general comments that he makes about the need to ensure that we get more rationality in the operation of services at local government level, and better integration of social services and the health service. It was interesting that my right hon. Friend said that he was not in favour of top-down solutions, and then referred to the fact that Christchurch going in with Hampshire would be a fantasy. Christchurch was in Hampshire until 1974 when, in such a top-down proposal, it was forced out of Hampshire into Dorset.”
“My right hon. Friend is wrong about that. In the discussions with Christchurch, Hampshire said that it needed assurance that it would be a net beneficiary of the resources from Christchurch in Hampshire rather than in Dorset. Christchurch tried to persuade Dorset County Council to make that information publicly available so that Hampshire could be reassured that it would benefit financially from having Christchurch transferred back into Hampshire. Unfortunately, even as we speak, Dorset County Council has not finalised the desegregation costs of splitting Christchurch at the borough council and upper tier levels from the rest of Dorset. We are told that those figures will not be available until the middle of June.”
“Friend’s aspiration for Christchurch to stay in Dorset was made non-viable by the Government’s insistence, in changing the rules, that Bournemouth and Poole should each have a veto over proposals that did not involve Christchurch joining Bournemouth and Poole—the very same reason. I shall now give way to my hon. Friend.”
“Hold on a moment! The consequence of those figures not being made available is that Hampshire, in the short window of opportunity given by the Secretary of State, was unable to sign up to the idea of entering negotiations with Christchurch on transferring Christchurch to Hampshire. Before I give way to my hon. Friend, may I point out another problem? The Secretary of State in his announcement of 7 November changed the goalposts. Bournemouth and Poole were not willing to merge together on their own. A proposal that involved Christchurch leaving Dorset and going into Hampshire fell foul of the fact that Poole and Bournemouth in effect had a veto. My right hon.”
“Friend has not been able to persuade his councillors to be more reasonable about that. Indeed, I do not blame my hon. Friend for this, but some of his councillors, and the leader of Bournemouth council in particular, have been throwing petrol on the fire by pushing through proposals such as borrowing £70 million to buy an asset that is estimated to be worth £50 million after development. They are borrowing money when Christchurch has no borrowings—it is debt-free and has been prudent all these years. Christchurch has raised its council tax over the years in order to balance its books. Meanwhile, Bournemouth and Poole kept their council taxes artificially reduced, leading to the financial crisis they now have. They are hoping that the burghers of Christchurch will come along and bail them out, and they will be assisted in that way.”
“The councillors in Christchurch went into a joint working party with councillors from Bournemouth and Poole, but one of the conditions for entering it was that Bournemouth and Poole should accept that in the event of a new unitary combining Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch, it would be fair and equitable that everyone at band D should pay the same council tax from year one. That is the way to achieve general support for a new council. General support for a new council is not achieved by telling residents at band D in Grange ward in Christchurch, which includes some of the most deprived housing estates in the whole of the west of England, that they will be cross-subsidising people living in Sandbanks, and other areas in the conurbation with really smart properties, for up to 20 years. It is a pity that my hon.”
“My hon. Friend has always been younger than me, even going back to the time when he helped me enormously as a student, when I was the Member for Southampton, Itchen. I am eternally grateful to him for his help during those campaigns in Southampton. However, it would be much easier to sell this project to the people of Christchurch, who are manifestly opposed to it at the moment, if there were more understanding on the part of Bournemouth of how much the people of Christchurch resent the prospect, under delayed harmonisation and equalisation proposals, of them cross-subsidising the people of Bournemouth and Poole by up to £200 a year at band D for up to 20 years. That has caused an enormous amount of resistance.”
“The reorganisation was presented in the consultation on the basis of net savings, but a lot of those savings were increased income from the people of Christchurch, to the benefit of those in Poole and Bournemouth. This is a long answer to my hon. Friend’s intervention, but the short answer is that the Government did know and encouraged this.”
“It was on the basis of that statement made by Government officials, presumably with the knowledge and support of Government Ministers, that the consultation document was drawn up, using figures based on a 20-year harmonisation period. As my hon. Friend knows, if there is a 20-year harmonisation period, that means that the figures look a lot more attractive than they do for a much shorter harmonisation period. Indeed, I questioned council officers in Dorset about that at the time. They explained that although the shorter harmonisation period would benefit my constituents in Christchurch, it would drive a coach and horses through the financial prospectus that had been produced, because it would eliminate almost all the savings from the reorganisation.”
“There was a meeting of officials from Dorset councils with the Department in June 2016, before the consultation papers were finalised. That meeting has been confirmed in answer to a parliamentary question that I tabled. I have been told that the minutes and notes of that meeting no longer exist, if they ever did. I have been told by the section 151 officer at Christchurch Borough Council, who was present at that meeting, that, in response to representations on the big council tax gap between Poole and Bournemouth, and Christchurch—more than £200 at band D—the officials said that the Government would agree to a 20-year harmonisation period.”
“Friend the Member for Bournemouth West, I hope that when the Minister responds he will say unequivocally what harmonisation and equalisation period the Government will set in the event of these orders going through.”
“A harmonisation period of two or three years would completely transform projections on savings, yet there has been no update from the councils to show what the impact would be in practice. The issue of harmonisation is fraught. The Government invited all councils in Dorset to make submissions on harmonisation in time for the 8 January deadline. I know that Christchurch did that, but not whether other councils did. Unlike with the Government’s decision to go ahead with the two unitary authorities proposal, which they announced on 26 February, they have not yet said where they stand on the fraught issue of harmonisation. Their criteria for judging the issue are so broad and vague that it gives them absolute discretion over what answer they provide. As the issue has now been raised by my hon.”
“Exactly. I obviously was not party to the conversation, but as I understand it, nothing about potential changes to council tax or business rate valuations was discussed. Subsequently, last October the Government indicated to council officers across Dorset that they were no longer content with a 20-year harmonisation period, and that the period would be much shorter. That was confirmed to me by the chief official at the Department—he is in the room today—when I met him on 7 November at the behest of the Secretary of State. I was told then that the Government thought that the maximum period for harmonisation would be five years, but in practice it has never been more than two years in the past, and a maximum of two or three years is likely.”
“That is a succinct but absolutely correct analysis, and if it was not correct, the people of Christchurch would not have voted as they did. More than 17,000 people went to a local poll to express the view that they do not want to be subject to Bournemouth and Poole control. I say “control” because in a Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch unitary authority, Christchurch will have 13% of the councillors, which means that they would always be outvoted and in a minority. The green-belt area around Christchurch would be open to being removed at the behest of Bournemouth and Poole, so that they could land grab and so on.”
“There would be a significant reduction in the number of councillors from Christchurch and, consequently, in their influence.”
“There is masses of evidence. Obviously it is coming not openly from councillors, but from landowners and developers who know well the council set up in Bournemouth. I know from talking to people in Christchurch that that is exactly what they have in mind. Sadly, I must point out to my hon. Friend that our Government are really giving a green light to councils to remove land from the green belt. That is a Government policy that could not be implemented at the moment in Christchurch, because Christchurch is not willing to put forward such a proposal to the Government. However, a big conurbation of Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch combined would be able to make such an application to the Government. There would be only 10 councillors from the Christchurch constituency in the new unitary authority, compared with 33 at the moment.”
“However, in so doing, they left a legacy of independents. They did not join the Conservative party; they became independents. If this shambles is allowed to develop in the way that the Government seem to want it to develop, it is likely that there will be a rise in independently minded people across the conurbation and a rise in support for the Labour party. To give the Labour party its due, it came a good second in Christchurch at the last general election. Okay, it was 25,000-plus votes behind me, but it nevertheless came a good second and made a big improvement on its previous performance.”
“The hon. Gentleman talks about upcoming elections. I fear that if these proposals go ahead, it will be doomsday for a lot of Conservatives in Dorset. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Poole in his place. Poole Liberal Democrats and the Poole People party are dead against these proposals—they are as concerned about them as people from Christchurch. If this change is forced on the people of Christchurch, what hope will people standing in Christchurch as Conservative candidates have of getting elected? Years ago, when the Conservative party brought in the right to buy, the Labour party lost its last representatives in Christchurch. The Christchurch Labour councillors at that time felt strongly that the right to buy was the correct policy and, because they did not like the way the Labour party opposed it, left the party.”
“I have since spoken to our former colleague, the junior Minister at the time, who told me of his horror when he heard what the Secretary of State said in response to the questions that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough put to him on Third Reading. Our erstwhile hon. Friend, who sadly was defeated at the general election, took the view that what was being said was thoroughly misleading—that is what he says. What we have is a situation where I and my hon. Friend, and the House, were misled by the Government—I am not saying deliberately—and made to believe that the Government would not introduce changes against the will of elected councillors.”
“It was on that basis that I asked the Secretary of State this specific question on Third Reading: “Will my right hon. Friend give the House an assurance that amendment 56”— the one that changed what is now section 15(5) to (8)— “will not be used by the Government to force change on any local authority?” The Secretary of State replied: “I will indeed.” —[ Official Report , 7 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 822.] My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough then pressed the point, citing his fear that the power would be used to impose changes in Lincolnshire that he and his people did not want. The Secretary of State went further and said that the powers were designed to bring councils together into discussion and not to impose the will of the Government on one council, as compared with another, against its consent.”