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“When was the last time that an allotted Opposition day was withdrawn in the way that the Leader of the House is withdrawing this one?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 43 of 109.
“Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), along with one or two others, expressed concern during the debate on that amendment that, if literally interpreted, the power it created could be used against a council against its will. I sought various undertakings in that debate, but the junior Minister was tied to his brief and unable to satisfy either me or my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough that the powers would not be used in the adverse way that we feared. Then—this is relevant, because it is how this came about—my hon. Friend and I spoke to the then Secretary of State during another Division on Report and said that if he did not give a stronger undertaking on Third Reading, we would divide the House. The Secretary of State told us that he would give us the undertaking that we sought.”
“That is where the regulations are problematic, because they say that the 2007 Act shall be changed retrospectively to operate in a way that allows councils to put submissions to the Secretary of State without their having invited such submissions. As the Minister said, the regulations being used to try to achieve that require the consent of at least one councillor in a particular category. However, during the passage of the 2016 Act in December 2015, the Government said they would give a guarantee that powers to override the democratically expressed will of an individual council would not be used for that purpose. The background to that was a Back-Bench amendment to the Bill that was considered on Report, which is now reflected in section 15(5) to (8). I and my hon.”
“I would also bring the Committee’s attention to this point, which the Minister anticipated I would make. The background is that, under section 2 of the 2007 Act, the Government have the power to invite proposals for local government reorganisation from two tier to single tier. That is indeed what the Government recently did in Northamptonshire. The 2007 Act also gave the then Government the power to insist that proposals be brought forward, but that power was time-limited and has expired. There was no power in that Act for councils to make their own proposals to the Government where there was not consent.”
“Remember that at the borough council elections in Christchurch in 2015 there was no talk whatsoever of any structural change. Indeed, at that time there were plaudits all round for the savings, extending to several million pounds each year, being achieved as a result of Christchurch and East Dorset working together in partnership with one chief executive, one set of chief officers and one headquarters premises. As a consequence of what is proposed today, that partnership will be broken, with all the dis-economies of scale that will flow from that. That joint working will be undermined, and one part of the partnership will be set against the other. The Government have not faced up to that, which is another reason to be concerned about the proposals.”
“Members will indeed have regard to what that Committee said and to the appendix to its report. That draws attention to the outcome of the poll. My hon. Friend the Minister said that some councillors from Christchurch had written to the Government saying that they rather fancied the idea of being councillors in a new unitary authority and thought it would be in the best interests of Christchurch residents that that should happen. When that was debated and voted on at the Christchurch Borough Council meeting in January, not a single councillor raised his hand to vote against what was proposed—in contrast to what happened a year previously. The reason was that they knew that if they did so, the electors in their wards would have been completely at a loss to understand how they could be insulted by their elected members.”
“That Committee drew specific attention to these instruments—particularly the draft modification regulations, which we are discussing at the moment—and to the local advisory poll in December 2017, “in which 84% (numbering 17,676 votes) of those taking part voted ‘no’ to the changes.” It reports in its conclusions at paragraph 11: “MHCLG has told us that Ministers have made clear that they will apply the criteria for local government restructuring ‘in the round’ for the area subject to reorganisation, rather than considering whether the criteria would be met in relation to each individual council area.” It goes on: “However, given the scale of opposition to the proposal expressed both by Christchurch BC and by its residents, we consider that these instruments give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.” I hope that, in looking at this issue, hon.”
“I will go along with that, yes. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, who is a betting man, knows exactly how to bet on two-horse races. Let me return to the issue of consent. Neither my hon. Friend the Minister nor others drew the Committee’s attention to the 26th report of the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which was published in April.”
“On the face of it there does seem to be an inconsistency between what the junior Minister was telling Parliament”— that was in November last year— “and the decision of the SoS in this case, but this is a matter…to raise politically, rather than giving rise to a legal argument.” So we have a situation where leading counsel takes the same view as I take, and took, and indeed relied upon during the consultation period in the autumn of 2016.”
“In this case s.15 is perfectly clear on its face, so what the Minister said is not admissible to seek to prevent him from acting under s.15. The correct forum for holding the Minister to account, for arguably giving an assurance that he is now reneging on, is in Parliament itself. The courts will not enforce an assurance given to Parliament, and will be clear that this is a matter which should be raised in Parliament.”
“If the hon. Gentleman looks at the whole context of this debate and the whole Hansard report, I think that he will reach the conclusion that a clear undertaking was given by the Government. Perhaps I can pray in aid the written opinion—it was referred to earlier—from Nathalie Lieven QC at Blackstone Chambers in response to a request from Christchurch Borough Council. In it, she says: “I was shown…various passages from the Hansard debates where the Minister appeared to assure Sir Christopher and another concerned MP, Edward Leigh, that the power would be used to persuade Councils to have a conversation about merger rather than to force them to merge against their will.” Nathalie Lieven QC goes on to say: “Debates in Parliament are only admissible”— that is, in a court of law— “where the meaning of the statute is unclear and ambiguous.”
“In her letter of 9 October, she said: “I understand that conversations are now continuing between the affected councils and interested parties to see if, and how, an agreement can be reached that is supported by all of the councils.” The clear implication of that was that the Prime Minister accepted that there had been an undertaking that all councils should reach an agreement, with the emphasis on the need for councils reasonably to participate in this rather than just saying, “We are not talking to you.” That was the concern expressed in that debate. If a council had an absolute veto, it could say, “I am not prepared to parley with you. I am not prepared to have any discussion.” The Government perfectly reasonably said, “We want to encourage councils to enter into discussions and debate to try to move forward with consensus or consent.””
“After the general election, all the Conservative councillors who had been re-elected in my constituency wrote to the Prime Minister asking her to intervene in this matter to ensure that Christchurch Borough Council was not abolished against the consent of the people. The Prime Minister wrote back in October 2017.”
“The first time I had any inkling that the Government were minded to renege on that undertaking was in March 2017. That is when I raised the point of order on the Floor of the House. I also wrote to the Prime Minister expressing my concern. As a result of that letter, she intervened. In the end, although it was expected that the Government would announce a “minded to” decision on the application in March 2017, they did not do so. There was then a period of purdah, as my right hon. Friend will remember, for the local elections. That was then closely followed by the general election, which amazingly was only just short of one year ago.”
“My right hon. Friend has made a long intervention, but he misunderstands my point about leading counsel. Leading counsel is saying that it seems quite clear that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and I were given an assurance that has now been reneged upon by the Government, and that redress is to be had not through the courts, but politically. That is why I am raising the matter in this Committee. There may be quite a lot of people in this Committee who regard it as very poor form for the Government to go back on their word in terms of an assurance that has been given to Parliament. Indeed, I raised the issue with Mr Speaker on a point of order in March 2017. Mr Speaker said it was not right to think that just because there had been a change of Minister or Government, the word given to the House could be reneged upon.”
“I have not yet really got into retrospection, but the letter before action from Christchurch Borough Council draws attention to the fact that it is important for Committees to look at retrospection before the matter goes to the courts, with all the problems that flow from that.”
“Christchurch Borough Council was doing that under duress in the spirit of co-operation, but specifically on the basis that it had not withdrawn its objections; that there would be no period of harmonisation; and that in the event of there being a new unitary authority, all band D taxpayers would pay the same from day one. I take your point, Sir Henry. I had not realised that we are now approaching 4 o’clock and we started at half-past 2, so we have only got five more minutes. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton for objecting to our dealing with the two statutory instruments together. That has enabled us to have a proper debate on this very important matter, which covers retrospection.”
“Why does my hon. Friend not accept that it would be fairer and better to organise a new unitary authority on the basis that everybody pays the same band D council tax from the outset?”
“My hon. Friend is talking about lines on maps. We are talking in Christchurch about a community with a long history and a great, strong local identity. Although he was not in the Christchurch constituency, he intervened in the Christchurch referendum to try to persuade people to vote in favour of Christchurch restructuring. Can he explain why he thinks he so manifestly failed to persuade the people of Christchurch that he was right and I was wrong?”
“What action could be stronger than for everybody to accept that from day one they should all pay the same council tax, rather than people in the most rundown part of Christchurch having to subsidise the people in Sandbanks?”
“Friends have the gall to suggest that that is not correct and that there is general support for all this. I hope the Minister will tell us in his response how people in Christchurch, for example, can be protected against new borrowing being taken out by Bournemouth and Poole. I referred earlier to the £70 million of borrowing. Why should the people of Christchurch want to go along with that, when they have been prudent and run a debt-free council? I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset accepts the decision of the joint committee that there should be an immediate move, on the creation of the new rural unitary, to equalisation and harmonisation. Why should there not be a similar move within the urban area? Surely actions speak louder than words.”
“I do not think that they will have been impressed by the talk of wanting all this to have been sorted out, of local democracy being overridden, or of bottom-up processes. Paragraph 8.7 of the Government’s explanatory memorandum says: “During the period of representation”— following the then Secretary of State’s “minded to” announcement in November— “210 representations were received from members of the public, local councillors, businesses and community organisations. Submissions from members of the public”— in other words, the real bottom-up submissions— “were more likely to be opposed to the proposal”. That is right across the whole of Dorset—we are not just talking about within Christchurch. Right across Dorset, more people were opposed to what the Government announced in November than were in support of it, yet some of my hon.”
“In other parts of Dorset, there are already parish and town councils, but not in Christchurch. I was encouraged by some of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West, who seems to speak in a rather different way from the leader of his council. The leader of his council is on record as saying that he is against the creation of any town or parish councils within the new urban authority. This afternoon, the leader of Christchurch Borough Council, the immediate past mayor of Christchurch Borough Council, the president of the Christchurch and East Dorset Conservative association, another Dorset county councillor and a prominent younger Conservative from Christchurch have sat and listened to this long debate.”
“The argument is not that retrospectivity is not engaged—of course, Christchurch Borough Council believes it is—but that the presumption against it is not engaged. There seems to be a recognition that retrospectivity is engaged. In the light of that, and of quite a lot of the decided cases, it seems that there is every prospect that, far from this being resolved this afternoon, as some of my right hon. and hon. Friends think it will, this will continue—and quite right too. We are a rules-based democracy and at the heart of all this is local democracy and localism. What is the point of introducing proposals to abolish Christchurch Borough Council and replicate it with a new parish council that will effectively be a new bureaucracy with fewer powers?”
“I would like the Minister to comment on the practicalities of all that, and on how easy it will be for those decisions to be rowed back on, if that is the will of the courts. I have looked at the Government’s response to the letter before action from Christchurch Borough Council, which is centred around the use of retrospective legislation, and the main arguments put forward seem to be that Christchurch is a bit late in the day in raising that point, despite the regulations being laid only on 29 March. The first two or three pages of the response centre around that point—“You missed your chance and it’s all too late.” The second part says that the presumption against retrospectivity is not engaged.”
“Thank you, Sir Henry. We are not at the end, and the reason is that there is a legal challenge to all this. We have had the letter before action and I understand that another letter before action has been issued by a resident in my constituency against the Government. It is interesting that, with the full knowledge of the legal opinions that have been floating around and the correspondence between the council in Christchurch and the Government, very little attention has been paid to that this afternoon. We are talking about a constructive solution. I hope that my hon. Friends will ensure that nothing is done that will make for a complete shambles if and when the courts decide that these orders are ultra vires and are quashed, if they are indeed passed by both Houses before then.”
“Gentleman’s vision that if there is to be a new unitary authority, everybody should pay the same.”
“Absolutely. I hope that the Minister will agree with the hon. Gentleman. What better way of setting up a new council, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West was saying, than by having a new culture, a new agenda, new vision and all the rest of it? It is very difficult to achieve that if we do not start off with everybody paying the same council tax at band D. I hope the Government will come off the fence and declare their hand, because I think behind their hand is hidden a proposal to introduce a notional council tax system, which would presume that the council tax in Poole, for example, had been raised by more than the threshold that triggers a referendum. I think that that will happen over a period of time, rather than immediately. I share the hon.”
“The order will come into force on the day that it is passed. When does he expect that to be, and how will the 14 days fit in with the forthcoming holiday period? Will the Minister comment further on what the Government’s attitude will be if indeed the judicial review proceeds, as most people expect it to, to a successful conclusion? What then for good local government in and around Dorset? In that event, Christchurch will hopefully continue to thrive as an independent sovereign borough, in tune with the wishes and the will of its local people, having, alone among all the councils in Dorset, invited the local people to express their views in a local poll—something that all the other councils ran away from doing.”
“I will not because I only have two more minutes. My hon. Friend made a number of good points and I want to respond to another of them. On severance payments, there is a lot of resentment that this exercise will result in council officers across Dorset receiving substantial payoffs and handouts. The Government have pleaded with the officers of the district councils, the county council and the urban unitaries that no exit payments should exceed £95,000. Exit payments include not just severance, but contributions to pensions. They have not had that guarantee and, up until now, there has not been support from councillors for such a policy, but it certainly strikes a strong chord with members of the public. How does the Minister think the shadow authority will be able to take over within 14 days of the coming into force of the order?”
“If there is going to be a judicial review, and if its outcome is that the courts strike down these instruments, will that not create absolute chaos in the area? Is that not a good reason in itself for the merger to be postponed?”
“I have just a short comment to make. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset, in his excellent remarks, has highlighted the fact that the Government invited this proposal for a merger. That contrasts with the behaviour of the Government in relation to Dorset, where they are seeking retrospectively to change the rules, so—”
“Friend the Minister, when he responds to the debate, what the explanation is as to why in the case of these two councils the Government invited representations, pursuant to section 2 of the 2007 Act, whereas in other cases in which councils have been in contact with the Government, the Government have not invited representations. Has that anything to do with the fact that, under section 2, if they invite representations and they are not supported by all councils, the Government are under an obligation to consult? Is that the reason why, in this case, they went along with it—because they thought that there would not be any need to consult—whereas in other cases, in which there would be a need to consult, they ducked away from that?”
“Exactly. I am just trying to make a comparison between the situation in this case, in which, if I understood my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset correctly, the Government invited the proposal, having received some informal representations from the councils concerned, and the situation in other cases in which, despite having been in contact with councils, the Government have not actually gone through the invitation process and are relying instead on changing the rules after the event. I just want to find out from my hon.”
“I have to say I agree absolutely with the points made by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan). I think the Government’s behaviour is undemocratic and certainly is in breach of the undertakings they gave to the Procedure Committee, which were that, if a Bill got a Second Reading, as night follows day, it would then get a money resolution and the Government would not abuse their power as they are seeking to do now.”
“The Government cannot have it both ways: they cannot delay issuing a decision while at the same time asserting that what they are doing is absolutely right.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker, for so robustly defending the rights of Back Benchers on both sides of the House. Will my right hon. Friend postpone the sitting, scheduled for Monday, of the Delegated Legislation Committee at which the Government propose to abolish Christchurch Borough Council, against the will of the citizens of Christchurch? I ask my right hon. Friend to do so because Christchurch Borough Council, on the advice of leading counsel, has issued a letter before action against the Government, and the Government have asked for extra time in which to respond to that letter. It seems to me that it is reasonable for us to see the Government’s written response to the letter before action before Back Benchers are asked to vote on this issue, and I hope she will agree that that is a perfectly reasonable request.”
“What can be done to reverse the Selection Committee’s decision that I should not be allowed to be a full member of the Delegated Legislation Committee? It is surely right that minority interests, particularly when one constituency is uniquely affected, should be able to be fully represented on a Committee. Obviously, I can attend the Committee, but I cannot participate fully in it. Is there any remedy available through which I can try to get myself on to that Committee?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This arises directly from business questions, during which we made reference to the Delegated Legislation Committee that is due to sit on Monday afternoon to discuss the abolition of Christchurch Borough Council. Because this hybrid instrument affects Christchurch exclusively, I applied to serve on the Committee that will consider it—I made my application to the Selection Committee. I hoped that I would then be able to raise in Committee the criticism that has been made from the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, as well as issues relating to the instrument being a retrospective measure, which, as I said, is the subject of potential legal proceedings.”
“In normal circumstances, it is not possible to abolish even a parish council without the consent of the parish councillors and the people living in that parish.”
“It also states: “Given the strength of concern about the proposal evidenced in the responses to the open consultation of 2016, we are also not convinced that the low level of responses to the late-2017 period for representations reflected widespread acceptance among local residents: it might equally well result from a sense that further objection was pointless.” That attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of local residents by saying that further resistance is useless is something that many people in Dorset have seen first hand in recent months. That is another reason why we as legislators should be on the ball and alert to ensuring that democracy really does mean that we do not change the rules without proper consent.”
“We have a responsibility to speak not just for the elected councils but for the people who live in the area. That point was made strongly by the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which states at paragraph 19 of its report: “We would urge caution in deploying this argument”— the argument that the councillors support the change. It adds that “if the views of councillors are a sufficient indicator of local reactions, there would be no need for the programme of consultation and engagement described in the” explanatory memorandum.”
“Councils may hold local referendums, which are the best and surest way of establishing whether there is genuine local consent for a proposition. My council in Christchurch held a local referendum following a “minded to” decision by the Secretary of State. On a 54% turnout, 84% of people were against the proposition. That just shows the extent and strength of interest that can be generated in a local community when there is a proper consultation and, as was suggested by some of the respondents in this case, a local referendum. The difficulty arises when there are two councils that both wish to change but are not necessarily in tune with the wishes of many of the residents of their areas. That is why we legislators have an important responsibility not to allow these statutory instruments to go through on the nod, without proper scrutiny.”
“I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister told us whether the proposals to reduce the number of wards that are set out in that statutory instrument were the subject of proper public consultation. In my submission, they should have been. The effect of that instrument would be to give him retrospective authority to invite the Boundary Commission to make changes. Reading between the lines, it seems that a lot of those changes have already been made and, indeed, will be implemented by the second of the statutory instruments. I have those concerns about the boundaries, but a lot of concern has also been expressed about the need for local people to be properly consulted. “Why,” they ask, “couldn’t we have had a local referendum?” I understand the strength of that argument.”
“The fact that so few representations were made following the Secretary of State’s “minded to” decision does not, in my submission, establish the consent that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole made clear is an important part of such a change. May I draw the Committee’s attention to one or two of the observations that were made in response to the original consultation, which was carried out by the parties to this proposal? People said that they did not like the idea of boundary changes about which they had not been invited to make any submission. There will be fewer councillors, which means that each will be more remote from local people than they are. Part of one of the statutory instruments is designed to enable the Boundary Commission to make changes to boundaries to reflect the reduced number of wards.”
“Indeed, the means by which many of these orders are developed is by the Secretary of State not carrying out the consultation himself, which he is entitled to do under section 2 of the 2007 Act, but by relying on the councils to carry out that consultation. It has been made clear to me by officials in the Minister’s Department that the invitation for representations is a very different proposition from a formal consultation. A consultation is an active engagement by the Government with interested people, and an invitation to them to submit their reviews in response to consultation questions. To invite representations is a much more passive exercise. Unless people have it drawn specifically to their attention that they can make representations, they often fail to do so.”
“Have the councils offered an explanation for why so few members of the public responded at this second stage?” The answer was: “These representations did not form part of the council-run consultation but were submitted as a result of the opportunity provided by the Secretary of State to any interested party to send to him directly any representation regarding his initial minded-to decision to proceed with the merger. The Council did make clear locally that there was a period of representations by informing local stakeholders, parish councils and other interested parties directly. As mentioned above, it may be that the intensive distribution of the myth-busting document reduced the need to make representations at that point.” The House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee said that it was not convinced by that.”
“It may be the case that one of the impacts of the myth-busting document was to result in few people feeling the need to make representations during the period for representations, see below.” The third question was a reference to the explanatory memorandum: “‘After the Secretary of State announced his initial decision that he was minded to implement the proposal, there was a period for representations lasting from 7 November 2017 until 8 January 2018. 20 representations were received. Of these 17 were supportive of the proposal, one was neutral and two were opposed.’ The EM makes it clear that only 2 of these 17 responses were from members of the public.”
“The second question was: “Have the councils offered any evidence that the ‘“myth-busting” document’ was widely read by local residents, in particular by any of the 114 members of the public who were against the proposals?” The answer from the Ministry was: “The myth-busting document was provided to all respondents to the original consultation who provided details for further contact to be made”— in other words, it was probably not provided to very many. It continued: “Therefore, though it may not have been provided to all individuals who objected, it would have been made directly available to those that expressed an interest in further information. It was also freely available on the East Suffolk website. In short, the councils made every effort to ensure the information was available.”
“In response, the Ministry said that “following the consultation, a ‘myth-busting’ document was published on the councils’ shared website to address the principal concerns raised during the consultation process.” The House of Lords Committee asked for additional information from the Ministry, and it is fair to say that it did not find that additional information satisfactory. In appendix 1 of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee report, it asked: “Have the councils published a summary of consultation responses?” The Ministry responded: “The councils have published the results of the consultation, which can be found via the following link”.”
“It expressed concerns about the instruments and asked, as a result, for them to be brought to the special attention of the House. The issue centres on local consent or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole said, consent itself. The Lords Committee said that local support is deemed to have been accepted because a very large number of people abstained, but in the open consultation process in East Suffolk, 114 responses from the public were against the proposal and 17 were in favour. A recurring concern among objectors was that a single council covering a large geographic area would weaken local democracy, and that certain areas would be under-represented.”